When choosing construction materials it is important to make options for a sollution that balances our environmental and enconomic choices. This way, the best way to attain this goal is to search near the manufacturer/dealer information about the origin of the material(s), impacts associated to its usage and recommendations when the product becomes obsolete – waste. Collecting information can focus, for example in questioning what are the raw materials (if they are renewable or not); what country does it come from (if it has to be displaced from far away); if the processes in its manufacturing use clean technologies; if they have environmental impacts or impact to the public health; the material behaviour (technical form), what to do and what the destination for the material when turned into waste. There exist manufacturers that are more aware and already transmit this information upon the sales. Others have the materials certified, for example some timber. There are other manufacturers that implement environmental criteria in the manufacturing process, such is the case of the adoption of the enterprises environemntal certification system (isso 14001 and EMAS). Any of these options guaranties that during the product manufacturing were considered the environmental aspects and made efforts to minimize them. To help on the choice of ecoproducts consult our datebase of selected ecoproducts taking into consideration the evaluation of their sustainable terms.
• How can I choose environmental friendly materials?
