Public hearing on proposed new criteria

Panels and mouldings for interior use

Nordic Ecolabelling gives you the opportunity to comment on the proposal for a new criteria generation for Panels and mouldings for interior use. The ecolabelling is assessed based on a life cycle perspective and fulfil high environmental and health requirements. Your comments are important and will be considered by the national ecolabelling boards and the Nordic Ecolabelling Board.

We look forward to your comments, which should be sent to Nordic Ecolabelling no later than 31 December 2023 to be taken into consideration.

Please find the proposed criteria for download further down on this page.

What have been changed?

• Product definition
  • The criteria only include panels and mouldings for interior use for use.
  • The criteria now also include cross laminated timber (CLT), glued laminated timber (glulam), panels made of wood plastic composite (WPC), textile or plastic and wet-room panels.
• Acoustic panels must achieve a minimum sound absorption class A or B
• New raw material requirements for textile, plastic, WPC and aluminium.
• Stricter requirements for share of renewable raw materials in gypsum and mineral wool.
• New and stricter requirements for energy use in production of panels as well as production of cement and mineral wool.
• The chemical requirements have been stringed in several ways e.g., a ban on using chemicals that are classified as environmentally harmful and the requirement for constituent substances now also includes CMR category 2 substances.
• The requirement for the emission of formaldehyde has been tightened.
• A new requirement for innovation has been introduced which promotes various measures to reduce the total environmental impact from production of panels, either related to the product itself or to conditions in production. At least one of the listed measures must be fulfilled.

In addition to the above mentioned we would also like your comments on the following matters

• The requirement for energy use has been restructured with new individual requirements limits for the different types of panels – including the new included types of panels. The idea of introducing a CO₂-requirement has been briefly discussed – however, the biggest environmental benefit lies in the reduction of real energy consumption. We appreciate to have your comments on the requirement.
• The proposed requirement for emissions of formaldehyde is harmonized with EU taxonomy criteria for construction of new buildings where a limit is set on 0,06 mg/m³ according to conditions specified in Annex XVII to Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 (not yet published). We appreciate to have your comments on the requirement.

Documents for download

• Criteria proposal
• Background to the proposal

Who can provide input?

All people, companies and institutions who are interested in taking part in the development work of Nordic Ecolabelling criteria for Panels and moulding for interior use can provide us with their opinions and comments. We would appreciate if you kindly distribute information about this review to whom it may concern.

How can comments be sent in?

Your input is most valuable to our criteria development. We prefer to receive your answers via mail for each contry.

For further questions, contact our product specialists:

Sweden

Martin Gajdos
E-mail: martin.gajdos@svanen.se or remiss@svanen.se

Norway

Jørgen Flo
E-mail: jf@svanemerket.no or post@svanemerket.no

Denmark

Heidi Belinda Bugge, Head of criteria
E-mail: hbb@ecolabel.dk or hoeringssvar@ecolabel.dk

Finland

Annika Hämäläinen
E-mail: annika.hamalainen@ecolabel.fi or joutsen@ecolabel.fi

What happens next?

When the consultation period is complete, the answers will be compiled and evaluated. For this reason, a new revised proposal for criteria will be submitted to the Swedish Ecolabelling Board and the other national committees. On this basis, the Nordic Ecolabelling Board will then decide on new criteria.

Part of the decision document is the summary of all consultation responses together with answers from Nordic Ecolabelling. The summary will be public and available on the Nordic Ecolabelling web page in connection with the publication of the new criteria.

We look forward to receiving your comments no later than 31 August  2023.