Assessment of chemicals in construction products

The building sector uses a lot of products (several thousands) and many of these contain chemicals, some of which have harmful effects on human and environmental health. Due to the restricted knowledge of data, the impacts of chemicals can be overlooked e.g. in eco-profiles of building elements. The reasons for that are lacks of product-specific emissions by manufacturing of chemical products, e.g. waterproofing systems and sealants.

Besides, most LCA-models do not include assessments of emissions in working environment, in indoor environment or from disposal processes. It was therefore in the project Assessment of Chemicals in Construction Products decided to adapt an existing score method for assessing the chemicals. As the European countries had agreed on a score Method for Risk Ranking chemicals (EURAM), it was decided to use this method to assess chemicals in construction products for two LCA phases, indoor environment and disposal phase.

The score method was used on two water-proofing systems. Waterproofing systems are used for making a water-impermeable layer in a bathroom wall. Results from the score method for indoor environment were compared to results from a screening method. Due to lack of data the screening method could not be used for the disposal phase.