Miljøprojekt, 1112 – Miljøkrav i lovgivningen

Miljøkrav i lovgivningen

Summary and conclusions

Rules and regulations regarding building and construction work has been scrutinised in order to obtain an overview over the requirements, that should provide an environment friendly building.

Those are the requirements that focus on reducing the following: energyconsumption, building materials consumption, waste and the consumption of products which are hazardous to the health and environment, both in the course of construction and running the buildings.

The project has been developed as a co-operation between experts in construction and building techniques and experts in the environmental problems.

An initial screening of rules and regulations has been performed, under which relevant items for a further scrutiny has been identified. Hereafter the relevant requirements concerning the environment has been identified and documented in a list, with reference to the typical construction phases. After an evaluation of the areas lacking of relevant requirements, a list of suggestions of improvement has been elaborated. The suggestions have been evaluated based on criterias of feasibility, efficiency and measurability.

The project has revealed a lack of detailed requirements in the rules and regulations for some of the criteria deemed relevant. There are a series of detailed requirements to regulate the consumption of energy in buildings, especially concerning heating and the use of hot water, namely requirements to the insulation and the efficiency of installations. But there is a lack of corresponding requirements to reduce the consumption of building materials, to reduce waste and to reduce the use of consumption of products which are hazardous to the health and environment. In some cases environmental requirements are mentioned in the purpose of a law. But then there are no detailed demands to ensure implementation of the purpose of the law.

In general, the standards for constructions and installations are based on essential requirements instead of requiring the use of specific materials or methods. The essential requirements are based on: Mechanical resistance and stability, safety in case of fire, hygiene and health, safety in use, protection against noise and energy economy. In the same way it should be possible to make essential requirements based on the environment, in a way to ensure the freedom of method and at the same time ensure the use of environmentally friendly materials and methods.

It has been expected that builders wish to build environmentally friendly would make it attractive for the producers of building materials to offer environmental friendly building materials. However, this development has not occurred. Therefore it should be considered to require a declaration of environmental friendliness, and eventually, to classify building materials accordingly.

The suggestions to improve the rules and regulations are:

Detailed requirements to ensure implementation of the purpose of environmental friendliness
Environmental requirements in the standards for construction and installations
Declaration (classification) of building materials re. Environment
Updating existing requirements