Recent years have shown growing concern for the environment, and in particular an increased demand for sustainable building and development. For the construction industry this means a need for accurate information about the environmental impact of the building materials and products that they use. The most reliable way to present this information has proven to be the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach. This approach investigates the processes involved in the manufacture, use and disposal of a product or a system – from cradle to grave.
In April 2017, EUMEPS presented the new set of Environmental Product Declarations for Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) insulation boards, (see Downloads "EPDs for EPS"). These declarations help to increase the transparency of communication on environmental properties of construction and insulation products. Further information on the environmental impact of EPS and the EPS life cycle assessment, can be found in the EUMEPS Brochure "The environmental truth: results of life cycle assessment of EPS" ( PDF, 342.94 kB)
In March 2018, Büro für Umweltchemie (BFU) released a report of a multi-criteria comparison of different insulation materials. It shows that EPS has excellent eco-properties for the production phase (see Benefits of EPS – Insulation Spider).