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Webinars on VOC regulations and labels
Following the success of our webinars on French VOC regulation, there will be webinars on several VOC related issues in late spring 2012, in three languages.
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Sustainable or Green Buildings

Green_Buildings

Please also click below for more general information

Sustainable Building

"Green Buildings" is a growing movement in a number of countries, namely in the USA, but other countries are experiencing similar developments towards sustainable buildings.

Sustainable building means that energy consumption, use of resources, impact on environment and on human health are considered and optimised during planning, construction, use and demolition - throughout the whole lifecycle of the building. This is also called sustainable building.

More and more public buildings and large office buildings are built green, but also some residential complexes, schools and hospitals are following the movement of sustainability. Motivation is either to raise quality and the sustainability of a building in general and to support environmental protection, or to contribute to Corporate Social Responsibility, or to facilitate marketing of the building with green performance.

Examples

There are no uniform criteria for what is considered to be "Green" or sustainable. The best known approach is

Other criteria have been or are about to be published by

and more. International initiatives can be monitored on websites of the International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment (IISBE), World Green Building Council, and in Wikipedia. The SB Alliance is trying to harmonise the Green Building criteria Europe-wide.

A large number of private initiatives can be found, such as

Typically each rating system will have a list of criteria, and in the end there is either a judgement "in compliance" or "no compliance", or there are several performance levels such as "silver", "gold", and "platinum", depending on the degree of compliance with the rating system. Please see the US based LEED as an example.

A general comparison between LEED, BREEAM and HQE is available in French language.

Eurofins supports architects, planners and suppliers of construction products to achieve compliance. Depending on the relevant country, we do this either with our own experts or we shall direct you to experienced specialists outside Eurofins.

As regards selection of constructions products, interior finishing and furniture, the Eurofins Indoor Air Comfort product certification and similar rating systems may be helpful. Eurofins partners with SCS (California) on low VOC emission certification programs in the USA.

Present discussion

Quite some discussion is going on whether and how to include low VOC emissions specifications for products for interior use into sustainable building programs.

As Eurofins was asked for input by several organizations, we compiled a paper with thoughts and inspirations how low VOC emissions could be described and incorporated into such programs if they want to encourage use of products with low impact on indoor air quality - available here for free download.^

Further Information

Please see our flyer on LEED issues in English or in French, or contact our national organisations or our specialists for using Eurofins expertise that may help to establish sustainable and green buildings.

Please see our presentation on LEED - a new challenge for low VOC emission materials, as presentation slides and as paper, held at CERTECH conference on Odours and Emissions from Materials in October 2009.

Your direct contacts:

Direct contact to Eurofins Product Testing A/S, the world market leader for VOC emissions chamber testing:

Eurofins Product Testing A/S
Smedeskovvej 38
8464 Galten
Denmark

Phone: +45 7022 4276

US office:

2200 Rittenhouse St., Suite 150
Des Moines, IA  50321
Phone +1-515-362-5937