NEWS
Laurent Tribut, Schneider Electric (pinfa member)
Laurent Tribut, Schneider Electric (pinfa member) explained that ensuring 50% “green materials” in its products by 2025 is a core element of the company’s sustainability objectives, including both climate and resources, and covering both Schneider Electric and its suppliers.
READ MOREBarton Finn, TCO Development
Barton Finn, TCO Development presented TCO Certified, the global independent sustainability certification addressing social and environmental responsibility of workplace and data centre related IT products.
READ MOREJonatan Kleimark, ChemSec
Jonatan Kleimark, ChemSec indicated that the International Chemical Secretariat is an independent non-profit organisation, founded in 2002, to advocate for substitution of toxic chemicals to safer alternatives, funded by the Swedish Government, WWF and other NGOs and individuals.
READ MOREPeter Fisk, Green Chemical Design
Peter Fisk, Green Chemical Design presented a study underway for pinfa, looking at whether organo-phosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs) is a meaningful group of chemicals for generic legislation, or how they could be appropriately grouped.
READ MOREStacy Glass and Lauren Heine, ChemFORWARD
Stacy Glass and Lauren Heine, ChemFORWARD underlined the need to establish trusted downstream user information on chemicals in products. Firstly, toxicology data is missing on many chemicals.
READ MOREMike Werner, Google
Google is committed to moving to safer chemicals in its products and operations to support a safe and circular economy, from production through the end of life for recycling.
READ MORECarles Ibanez, ICL (pinfa member)
Carles Ibanez, ICL discussed the challenge for flame retardants and for all plastics additives of persistence versus durability.
READ MOREThomas Futterer, Budenheim (pinfa member)
A very wide range of different flame retardants are today needed to achieve fire safety in materials with very different and demanding mechanical, electrical, aesthetic or other properties.
READ MORESustainability & fire safety: what’s the link?
As part of EU Green Week, Fire Safe Europe’s 2nd June 2022 webinar discussed why fire safety is linked to sustainability in buildings, in the context of the EU’s “Renovation Wave” objective of renovating building stock to improve energy efficieny and of “green buildings”.
READ MOREMargaret Simonson McNamee, Lund University
Introduced the webinar with a presentation explaining why environmental and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) assessments of buildings should take into account fire risk and fire safety, in the context of the IAFSS agenda for fire safety (International Association for Fire Safety Science, see pinfa Newsletter n°108).
READ MOREHeikki Väänänen, European Commission DG GROW
The EU FIEP (Fire Information Exchange Platform) was launched with the aim of improving fire safety across the EU by sharing information on best practices between Member States.
READ MOREFulvia Raffaelli, European Commission DG GROW
Emphasised that sustainability is critical in construction, but is also very complex. Energy efficiency was a key parameter in the past, but now circularity is also a priority (use of secondary materi...
READ MOREChristian Fundby Schou, DBI
Agreed that fire safety opens important potential for innovation in sustainable building materials and construction.
READ MOREGrunde Jomaas, FRISSBE and ZAG
There is a need for science, testing and standards, both on new materials and new energy systems in green buildings, and on the links between fire safety and sustainability.
READ MOREBrian Meacham, Meacham Associates
Further underlined the need for data on changing fire risks with green buildings. Data is not keeping up with the implementation of new technologies, green materials, façade insulation, photovoltaics, energy storage, etc.
READ MOREYosr Melki, Knauf Insulation
Keeping people safe is critical for all buildings. She calls for wide value chain cooperation to integrate sustainable construction and fire safety, engaging design engineers and architects, materials suppliers, the construction industry, as well as researchers and regulators
READ MOREFanny Guay, PAROC
Industry wants European standards, to facilitate placing on the market and to ensure demanding levels of fire safety. The EU has regulatory tools which can support this, in particular the Construction Products Directive and the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive, but in the latter fire safety is only included marginally.
READ MOREResearch gaps for integrating fires into LCA
A Fire Safety Journal article and a thesis from Oregon State University find little existing science and identifies research and data gaps.
READ MOREData on environmental emissions from fires
New report analyses emissions from fires, susceptible to have health or environmental impacts, with an Emission Factor database for 90 materials.
READ MOREReview of environmental impacts of fires
NFPA-funded study proposes framework for quantifying environmental impact of fires and identifies research gaps. As above, most of the c. 60 references concern environmental impacts of wildfires or of major fire incidents, fire statistics reports or ISO methodologies.
READ MOREEU FireStat project reports 3 – 5
Efectis has published reports on several packages of the EU FireStat project on fire data and cost/benefit analysis of fire safety actions (“Closing data gaps and paving the way for pan-European Fire Safety Efforts”, see DG GROW above).
READ MOREFire safety regulation of upholstered furniture & mattresses
EU FireStat report concludes fire safety regulation upholstered furniture and mattresses in Sweden offers net cost benefit, but with high uncertainty. This is the report of package #5 of the EU FireStat project (see above), led by Efectis, with this work package carried out by Lund University.
READ MORESFPE Handbook of Fire and the Environment
New 500 page reference work from the Society of Fire Protection Engineers on fire impacts on the environment, including mitigation and sustainability.
READ MOREEU JRC reviews SSbD approaches
Commission report analyses objectives and existing tools for assessment of “SSbD” for chemical, but ignores durability. The 184 page report reviews existing frameworks relevant to “Safe and Sust...
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