Product Environmental Footprint

European Aluminium industry considers that Life Cycle Assessment in line with ISO 14044 is the most appropriate approach to assess the environmental footprint of products along their full life cycle.

We supports the objective of moving towards more resource efficient production and consumption and believe that a sound and robust life cycle based assessment of activities and products can provide useful information to improve resource efficiency.

For these reasons, European Aluminium is directly engaged into the European Commission Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) initiative through two pilot projects: “Metal sheet” and “Beer”.

That it encompasses the whole life cycle of products, including “use” and “end-of-life”, and that most relevant environmental impacts are used as basis for footprinting assessments.

That the environmental benefits of materials with permanent properties after recycling, like metals, are fully and transparently recognised at the end of the life of products, in consistency with the EU waste hierarchy.

For building applications, we call for an alignment of PEF with CEN/TC350 standards, i.e. EN 15804 and related ones, provided that recycling benefits are properly considered at end of life.