Whilst most of us were away enjoying time off, the European Commission released the Beta version of Level(s), the EU framework of core sustainability indicators for office and residential buildings. 

During the consultancy phase, Construction Products Europe had submitted its comments to DG Environment in October of last year. In these we had underlined that life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) methodologies are mature enough to be the core assessment of resource efficiency building performance. 

Indeed, these methodologies are the most reliable and accurate ways to assess the sustainability of buildings. We are pleased to read that most of our recommendations were taken up by the authors and we now see Level(s) as a useful tool for the construction industry. 

However, the challenge remains and that is to organise the necessary uptake of this assessment system in order to achieve the transformation towards a more sustainable building stock. This has yet to be achieved as the report does not look into the promotion of this tool, its uptake by the market players, nor potential rewards or visibility. 

A EC workshop is planned for December in Brussels, Construction Products Europe will offer its support to help disseminate this important initiative and its results. Construction Products Europe will further assess the technical details of the methodologies and provide the necessary feedback to DG JRC and DG ENVI.

More information and downloads in the website of the EC.