Sustainable use in the Mass Balance

A journey does not begin the moment we leave nor does it end the moment we reach our destination…. (Ryszard Kapuscinski)
The EPDItaly journey is enriched by new technical experiences that demonstrate, without a shadow of a doubt, the efforts of producers in the field of sustainability, as well as the techniques used by them to enhance their products.
One of these consists in enhancing the “sustainable” components of products when they are no longer traceable within the product itself, an occurrence due, for example, to particular production processes. In this case, in order to be able to enhance that particular “sustainable” component, the so-called Mass Balance Approach (MBA) comes to the rescue, for which every process (even the one that “disperses” the inherent sustainable characteristic of the material), fulfills the principle of mass conservation.
This principle is adopted for the development of the LCA life cycle of a product for the purpose of preparing an Environmental Product Declaration EPD, both when the intrinsic characteristic of the material (e.g., recycled content, or biological material content) is tracked through the production processes (e.g., 35 kg goes in and 35 kg comes out), and when that characteristic is “lost” through the production flow. In fact, it is not unusual to recognize some situations in the marketplace that the recent International Standard prEN 15941:2022 “Sustainability of construction works – Data quality for environmental assessment of products and construction work – Selection and use of data” discusses within a special chapter: “A producer who uses 50 percent bio-based inputs and 50 percent fossil-based inputs does not track exactly which products use which inputs, but issues an appropriate claim only for the 50 percent of the product production that uses 100 percent bio-based inputs.”
This approach, despite encouraging the use of renewable raw materials, could create the problem of not reflecting the physical reality of the product. There is concern within Eco Platform that this could create a kind of greenwashing that could undermine the image and credibility of EPD.
Eco Platform itself created a special working group in order to establish guidelines that could be shared at the European level by the various Program Operators.
EPDItaly technicians were proactively involved in order to propose shared solutions to manage the MBA. Unfortunately, the proposed solutions encountered conflicting positions among colleagues and therefore, in the absence of regulation by the European Commission, Eco Platform currently does not allow MBA in EPDs of construction products (Eco EPDs).
For this reason, Eco Platform has proposed itself as an interlocutor of CEN TC 350 to contribute to the standardization activity, and of the European Community in order to find Guidelines acceptable to all. EPDItaly has asked to join the Task Force that has the task of proposing such Guidelines. Well aware that this is critical for some markets, EPDItaly continues to monitor its progress and the decisions made at the international level in order to ensure transparency in the market.