Live Green: 52 steps for a more sustainable life (sustainable gift, self sufficiency, sustainable home)

Product Information

UKCG members support and give preference to procuring products which are able to demonstrate compliance with a recognised responsible sourcing scheme, certified by a third party’

An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) which contains more information which your clients may need to knowUnlike many other schemes BES 6001 is not a sector specific standard; any material, product or product group can be certificated against the standard. However, in some cases individual construction product sectors have made use of the BES 6001 scheme as a framework and have developed their own sector scheme which is fully compliant and equivalent to BES 6001. An example is the Eco-Reinforcement scheme for steel reinforcement in concrete – please see www.eco-reinforcement.org.

One very good reason to seek BES 6001 certification comes from the UK Contractor’s Group(who represent over 30 leading construction companies who together account for a third of the UK construction industry turnover). The UKCG state that: Delivering a route to benchmark and achieve continuous improvement regarding the sustainability of construction productsIn addition, the organisation must have a documented system for its purchasing process and the approval of all of its suppliers who provide input materials for the product being assessed. The system must be designed to implement the criteria with respect to the BES 6001 standard. The organisation must also maintain a list of all the suppliers that provide constituent materials for the assessed product. As a minimum, 60% of the constituent materials (by both mass and volume) in the assessed product shall be traceable down the supply chain, through appropriate chain of custody evidence, to the organisations which: GreenBookLive is the unique reference source and online listing of environmental products and services.

GreenBookLive is a free to use online database designed to help specifiers and end users identify products and services that can help to reduce their impact on the environment. What is included ?The process, following the acceptance of the BRE’s proposal and receipt by BRE of full certification fees, is:

Making changes to the way in which we choose products and services can have a major impact on the construction and related industries and significantly reducetheir impact on the environment. Areas of importance include the extraction of raw materials, material waste, transport of products and materials, energy consumption, heat loss and emissions from manufacturing processes and buildings. However, greening the built environment is not as simple as specifying products and services that claim to be ‘green'. Green claims are very easy to make, but considerably harder to substantiate. Independent approval of products and services ensure that not only ‘green' claims are substantiated, but that they meet performance standards appropriate for their intended use. and companies with BES 6001 certified products can use the BRE BES 6001 Responsible Sourcing Badge of Recognition on marketing material, letterheads etc:Responsible Sourcing is defined in BS8902 - Responsible sourcing sector certification schemes for construction products – Specification as: A wide range of products and services, from commercial building products and services to domestic energy efficiency products can be found within GreenBookLive. This includes listings of trained and licensed BREEAM Assessors and qualified BREEAM Accredited Professionals. It includes listings of products and installers that are certified under BRE Global's Microgeneration Certification Scheme, and products that are assessed under our rigorous Environmental Profiles and Responsible Sourcing schemes. Green claims Environmental profiles measure the impacts of a construction material, product or building system throughout its life – not only during its manufacture, but also its use in a building over a typical building lifetime. This includes its extraction, processing, use and maintenance and its eventual disposal.