Sustainability Briefing Documents from the Construction Products Association

The Construction Products Association (CPA) continues to carry out great work on sustainability, and their website at www.constructionproducts.org.uk contains many useful resources to help you in your work with partners to improve the sustainability performance of your own businesses.

Earlier this year the CPA joined RetroNetZero RS&IN, a collaborative network aiming to unlock the adoption of sustainable innovation in domestic retrofit. RetroNetZero RS&IN is an Innovate UK-funded project now in its implementation phase, having successfully completed its discovery phase in 2024. The Network sets out to explore the regulatory challenges to the deployment of products in domestic retrofit, which it identifies as preventing potential new solutions from contributing to the rapid upscaling of retrofit, needed for the UK to meet its net zero carbon targets.

In February the CPA hosted a webinar on this topic, and it seems likely that the delivery of innovation for Net Zero in the retrofit context is set to be a topic of growing importance in the coming years.

The CPA has also been actively involved in lobbying regarding Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Working alongside the Contract Flooring Association and other key players, the CPA represents the industry through ongoing discussions about EPR for packaging.

For the benefit of those concerned about this topic, the Environment Agency published a regulatory position statement (RPS) in February which can be viewed here.

The most recently-published Sustainability Briefing Documents from the CPA cover the topic of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and are fairly technical in nature, but may nonetheless be useful for those who wish to understand a little more about how EPDs work and specifically how they can be compared.

EPD – Uncertainty & Comparability between EPD – Comparability, August 2024
https://www.constructionproducts.org.uk/publications/sustainability/uncertainty-comparability-between-epd-comparability

Treatment of Biogenic Carbon Content in EPDs, March 2024
https://www.constructionproducts.org.uk/our-expertise/sustainability/decarbonisation-and-net-zero/treatment-of-biogenic-carbon-content-of-construction-products-in-environmental-product-declarations-epd

I’m a manufacturer – how do I go about getting an EPD? March 2024
https://www.constructionproducts.org.uk/our-expertise/sustainability/sustainability-measurement-and-reporting/i-m-a-manufacturer-how-do-i-go-about-getting-an-epd

Types of Environmental Product Declaration and their Advantages and Disadvantages, February 2024
https://www.constructionproducts.org.uk/our-expertise/sustainability/sustainability-measurement-and-reporting/types-of-environmental-product-declaration-and-their-advantages-and-disadvantages

Aside from EPDs, other Sustainability Briefing Documents published during 2024 covered the following topics:

What is meant by the construction product lifecycle, February 2024
https://www.constructionproducts.org.uk/our-expertise/sustainability/sustainability-measurement-and-reporting/what-is-meant-by-the-construction-product-life-cycle

What is upfront carbon? March 2024
https://www.constructionproducts.org.uk/our-expertise/sustainability/decarbonisation-and-net-zero/what-is-upfront-carbon

Earlier documents include:

How much waste is produced by the construction sector? August 2022
https://www.constructionproducts.org.uk/our-expertise/sustainability/resource-efficiency-zero-avoidable-waste-and-the-circular-economy/how-much-waste-is-produced-by-the-construction-sector

New Plastic Packaging Tax, April 2022
https://www.constructionproducts.org.uk/our-expertise/sustainability/resource-efficiency-zero-avoidable-waste-and-the-circular-economy/new-plastic-tax-april-2022

For more information about sustainability visit the CFA Guide to Sustainability 2025–2026.