CEI-Bois
POSITION PAPER
French draft decree and order relating to the labelling of construction and
decoration products with their volatile pollutant emissions
(Notifications 2009/701/7 and 2009/702/F)
The European Confederation of Woodworking Industries (CEI-Bois) represents the
interests of the European woodworking industries: over 380,000 companies with a
turnover of around 269 billion euros in the EU27 and more than 2.7 million
employees. FEIC (European Federation of the Plywood Industry) represents the
European manufacturers of plywood and EPF (European Panel Federation) represents
the manufacturers of particleboard, MDF and OSB in Europe. The total European
wood-based panels production amounts to some 60 million m³ per year.
CEI-Bois, EPF and FEIC strongly oppose to the proposal from EU Member State
France to introduce the labelling of construction and decoration products on the
basis of their volatile pollutant emissions since the proposed French decree and
order will create a technical barrier to trade thereby infringing the internal market.
CEI-Bois, EPF and FEIC base their opinion on the following principal remarks and
technical and economic grounds.
Principal remarks

The French draft is an infringement of the EU internal market as it has been
established by the EU Construction Products Directive (89/109/EEC), because
it imposes additional requirements for testing and labelling of construction
products thereby creating a technical barrier to trade resulting in large
additional costs for the producers and a distortion of competition.

The current harmonised European standards for construction products do not
take volatile pollutant emissions into account for the CE marking, since they
are not (yet) included in the Mandates given by the European Commission to
CEN. The European Commission is preparing an extended implementation of
the essential requirement N° 3 relating to hygiene, health and the
environment of the Construction Products Directive (CPD). In this framework,
CEN/TC 351 is currently preparing harmonised standards on the assessment
of
the
release
of
regulated
dangerous
substances.
It
is
therefore
counterproductive if one Member State starts introducing mandatory labelling
CEI-Bois
based on emission ratings without taking into account and
waiting for the results of the work of CEN/TC 351.

The proposed ratings, which refer to “the indoor air emissions of volatile
substances posing an inhalation toxicity risk on a scale from C (high
emissions) to A+ (very low emissions)” include an exposure concentration
limit threshold of < 10 µg/m³ for formaldehyde (A+ rating). This limit value
is 10 times lower than the current WHO guideline for indoor air
concentrations of formaldehyde and much stricter than the formaldehyde
emission class E1 (0.124 mg/m³), which is the current reference for the EU
market. It is difficult to believe that people in France are 10 times more
sensitive to formaldehyde than the population in the rest of the world.
Furthermore, the limit is so low that it cannot be achieved by wood-based
panels. To our knowledge, this limit is even far below the detection limit of
commonly available test methods.

The limit value for the strictest class A+ for TVOC is so extremely low that it
cannot even be achieved by certain wood species. Furthermore, there are
large variations in the natural VOC emissions of wood, which cannot be
steered or engineered by the manufacturers. Consequently, this draft decree
is discriminating wood versus other materials.
Legal grounds

The French draft decree does not respect the provision that Member States
have to give detailed information on the effects of the measure on health,
environment, ... of their proposed regulations. In the decree and in the
notification there is no serious information in this respect at all. This is
clearly contrary to the European rules.

It should be underlined that the barrier to trade that will be created by the
French decree and order could only be justified if there would be a
compelling and absolute necessity for the measure. Such a necessity is not
supported by documentary evidence at all. Normally, at least a risk
assessment has to be presented in order to justify the measure. In the
notification not even elements of such an assessment are included.
CEI-Bois

It should be highlighted that the directive requires that the measures to be
introduced must not be disproportionate to the objectives to be achieved. It
is clear that the French situation is not fundamentally different to that in the
other Member States. The French decree is thus clearly not proportionate.
Technical grounds

The French authorities put forward different reference test methods than
those included in the provisions of the harmonised European standards and
CE marking under the CPD. CEN/TC 112 « Wood-based panels » has already
taken a position requiring that formaldehyde testing for wood based panels
(and by extension all wood products) is to be based on EN 717-1 rather than
the EN ISO 16000 test methods proposed by the French authorities. The limit
values of reference formaldehyde emission from wood-based panels are
therefore established according to EN 717-1 in hEN 13986.

EN ISO 16000-9 is a standard adopted for the determination of VOC
emissions from building products and not intended to determine equilibrium
concentrations of formaldehyde. EN 717-1 is a standard developed for the
determination of the equilibrium concentrations of formaldehyde emissions
from wood-based panels, and other products as required by regulations in
various European countries. Furthermore, the variability on the ISO 16000
standards can be very high (often 30-50% difference in the results between
laboratories and sometimes even up to 160%!). How can a producer have
legal certainty if one laboratory measures the double of another laboratory?

The correlation between EN-717-1 and EN ISO 16000 is far from established.
Working Group 2 of CEN/TC 351 is formally in charge of the evaluation of
both methods for the determination of emissions of volatile substances from
construction products into indoor air. This evaluation is part of extensive
validation testing of a new harmonised standard that has not commenced as
yet. It is therefore totally unacceptable that France unilaterally imposes the
ISO 16000 series as the reference standards for all construction products.

The possibility to use an ISO 16000 standard, a French national standard or a
harmonised standard test method makes the banding (A+ to C) seem
arbitrary, suggesting the limit values are not based on a scientific approach.
CEI-Bois
This would make it possible to choose a test method that
gave you the best result for a given product. This further supports the need
for validation and the development of correlations before imposing test
methods.
Economic grounds

The implementation of the test methodology proposed in the French draft
decree would
create substantial additional costs for the manufacturers
without any noticeable advantage neither for the health of the consumers or
for the environment. Furthermore, there is a big risk of proliferation of
national requirements, since other Member States could decide to set up
different schemes, which would be extremely detrimental for the construction
industry and the European internal market.

In view of the test duration (28 days), the amount of construction products on
the market and the limited number of facilities for testing, it will take many
years to test all construction products (French, European and non-European)
that are being put on the market in France. While waiting for their test
results, numerous products will be excluded from the market thus distorting
competition.

The implementation of the French decree would distort competition for wood
and wood-based panel products in relation to other construction products. In
particular the fact that the highest class is not achievable by a naturally
renewable raw material, wood, is an unacceptable discrimination and risks to
exclude many products from key markets in France (and subsequently
possibly in other countries).
Brussels, 5 March 2010