Tasks of the PCR committee

Quality assurance, international harmonisation, decision-making on technical issues

Life cycle assessments for buildings should be comparable. However, this can only be guaranteed if the incoming data for the building materials and systems or services connected with the building are calculated according to identical methods and calculation rules. EPDs of similar building materials must be comparable – the specifications for calculation should be harmonised internationally.

Since 2012,  EN 15804 (ÖNORM EN 15804 Sustainability of construction works - Environmental product declarations - Core rules for the product category of construction products) has raised harmonisation to standard. Supplementary to ISO 14025 (ÖNORM EN ISO 14025 Environmental labels and declarations. Type III environmental declarations. Principles and procedures), EPDs for building materials can now be calculated in great detail. EN 15804 is considered the overarching document for all building materials and therefore does not address all product categories in detail, sometimes there is still room for interpretation. The different interpretations of these discretionary powers can in some cases mean that benchmark values are not reached.

For this reason, additional product category rules (PCRs) for individual product groups are drawn up at the level of the CEN-TC working groups in the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) as well as in Austria. In principle, the CEN PCRs are recognised as superior by Bau EPD GmbH. Basically, new PCR documents are drawn up by groups of technical experts on the basis of calculated life cycle assessments. A lot of pioneering work is still being done here.

The members of the PCR committee act on a voluntary basis as independent third parties and have jointly laid down generally applicable programme rules for Bau EPD GmbH (see PCRs).

The head of the PCR committee convenes the product group forums. The members of the product group forums can be representatives of the PCR committee as well as representatives from industry and business and other interested parties.

As soon as EPDs based on existing PCR documents are available, they must be checked for completeness, plausibility and compliance with all data quality requirements as part of a verification process. The PCR committee draws up the necessary guidelines, process flows and protocols for this purpose, and here the specifications of the EcoPlatform, the international umbrella organisation for EPD programme operations, are strictly observed in order to ensure harmonisation in the European area.

The independent verifiers listed at Bau EPD GmbH as the programme operator are provided by members and institutions of the PCR committee and have a specific qualification profile.