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CIF’s involvement in FIEC, the European Construction Industry Federation, provides a route to share technical experience and follow developments affecting construction across Europe.
Recent FIEC technical discussions covered several EU developments relevant to construction, from building performance and biodiversity to product standards and material reuse.
- Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD): The revised directive strengthens requirements for building energy performance, renovation and zero-emission new buildings. It also introduces life-cycle carbon reporting for new buildings, increasing the importance of reliable material quantities and environmental product data.
- Nature Restoration Regulation: This regulation establishes targets for restoring degraded ecosystems, including urban green space and tree cover. National restoration plans will set out how countries deliver these targets, with implications for spatial planning, infrastructure and development.
- Birds and Habitats Directives: These directives protect wild birds, designated habitats and species, and underpin the Natura 2000 network. They influence ecological surveys, assessment and permitting where construction projects could affect protected sites or species.
- Environmental simplification and permitting proposals: The EU’s environmental simplification package includes proposals to streamline environmental assessments and permit procedures. These concern how assessments are organised and coordinated, including their interaction with environmental impact assessment and other existing requirements. environment.ec.europa.eu
- Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR): The regulation introduces requirements to prevent packaging waste and improve recyclability and reuse. Construction-relevant packaging includes pallets, containers and certain bulk-material “big bags”, with reuse obligations depending on the packaging type, application and exemptions. European Commission
- Circular Economy Act—developing initiative: The planned initiative aims to strengthen the European market for waste and secondary materials, improve the availability of quality recycled materials and stimulate demand. Areas under consideration include waste management, producer responsibility and End-of-Waste criteria.
- EU End-of-Waste criteria for recycled aggregates – technical proposals: The Joint Research Centre is developing common criteria for when aggregates recovered from construction and demolition waste can cease to be classified as waste. The proposals cover inputs, processing, environmental testing, quality management and conformity documentation.
- Construction Products Regulation (CPR): The revised regulation updates the framework for marketing construction products, including performance declarations, CE marking and environmental information. Its phased implementation also provides for digital product passports to improve access to product information across the supply chain. single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu
- Building modules and kits – CPR standardisation work: European technical work is developing common definitions and assessment methods for construction kits, prefabricated elements and building units. This will help clarify how off-site products are assessed and how their performance relates to completed buildings.
- Ready-mixed concrete and EN 206: EN 206 addresses concrete specification, performance, production and conformity, alongside structural design and execution standards. Work is examining its possible harmonisation under the CPR and the implications for product assessment, declarations and quality assurance.
- Water Resilience Strategy: This EU policy strategy addresses water security, efficiency and resilience to climate change. For construction, relevant areas include water infrastructure, leakage reduction, drainage and flood resilience; the strategy supports implementation of existing water legislation.