This guidance is primarily aimed at public procurers involved in a range of contracting agreements related to building materials and products. This includes the purchase of building materials for construction works, but may also extend to material extraction, manufacturing, building, retrofit, refurbishment, design, interior fit out, and end-of-life demolition or deconstruction processes. 

The WINCER project aims to develop innovative ceramic tiles containing over 70 wt% of recycled materials from urban and industrial wastes. The specific objectives are related to:

The concept of environmental sustainability and its applications in the ceramic industry has been raised due to the environmental issues related to the construction sector. This study evaluated and compared the environmental impacts of ceramic tiles manufactured by the current production technologies. Four different cleaner scenarios are applied based on cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment.

The Inventory of Carbon and Energy (also know as the ICE database) is an embodied carbon database for building materials which is available for free on this page. It contains data for over 200 materials, broken down into over 30 main material categories. The first version was released in 2005 and it has been updated at periodic intervals. 

The Construction Material Pyramid from CINARK at the Royal Danish Academy makes it possible to compare, for example, CO2 footprints between different categories of materials or between material types within the same category. It also makes it possible to view different kinds of environmental impacts across the different materials. It thus offers a tangible, interactive calculation tool and at the same time opens up a dialogue about more detailed studies of the materials’ position in the pyramid and later their place in the project design.