The European Waterproofing Association (EWA) was created to provide an authoritative voice for the European Waterproofing industry. This business association represents the Europe’s central source of advices and information on all roofing and waterproofing matters, both to the industry, its user groups and other stakeholders. Sustainability issues play a central role in the waterproofing industry as well as in the construction industry overall. For this reason, EWA asked our help to develop a Pan European Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for several bitumen waterproofing systems, with the aim of supporting responsible manufacturers on the environmental marketing activities with a scientific and holistic perspective.

A pan-European life cycle inventory (LCI) study was carried out, involving in the data collection phase about 43 manufacturing plants in 12 countries. Average energy and resources consumption as well as emission of substances to the environment were quantified to calculate the environmental burden of six waterproofing integrated system.
A common industry fact sheet was developed, stating the average impact generated by bitumen waterproofing systems produced by EWA members.
At the same time, a customized Life Cycle Analysis web tool was developed for data collection, LCA reporting, and R&D elaborations, allowing EWA members to improve the environmental performance of the waterproofing systems.

EWA’s sectorial Environmental Product declaration is the first EPD for a trade association to have been simultaneously registered under 5 different EPD initiatives (namely EPD® System, German IBU, AENOR GlobalEPD, EPD Norway and EcoPlatform).

The last study was conducted among 43 plants in 12 European Countries. The LCA web tool is currently used by more than 50 plants of EWA members.