FEhS Institute welcomes EU Commission 2024-29 guidelines

The Germany-based FEhS Building Materials Institute has welcomed the EU Commission's 2024-29 policy guidelines regarding new legislation on the circular economy to improve the use of alternative raw materials and optimise public procurement.

"The FEhS Building Materials Institute considers the planned measures in the EU Commission's Political Guidelines 2024-2029 to be trendsetting. In many respects, they are in line with the FEhS Institute's core demands for sustainable resource management and the key points of a legal opinion on the EU Public Procurement Directive commissioned by the FEhS Institute and the European association EUROSLAG in 2020," said FEhS Institute in a press statement.

The legal opinion on the EU Public Procurement Directive calls for specifications for a circular public procurement system, such as the comprehensive approval of secondary building materials and their conditional preference in public procurement. Among other things, the fundamental importance of environmental criteria in the award of public contracts should be enshrined, “aspects of environmental protection, the circular economy and resource conservation” should be mandatory in the specification of services and the non-approval of secondary materials should be justified in the contract award notices.

Thomas Reiche, MD of the FEhS Institute and chairman of EUROSLAG: “We are optimistic about the guidelines presented by the EU Commission. This is considerable progress compared to 2020, when the objectives formulated in our report were not heard by the EU Commission. We are working with our partners at all levels to ensure that these plans are put into practice.”