- Date 2021-06-17
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has issued a report "Chemicals of Concern in the Building and Construction Sector" (May 2021), providing an overview of the challenges that chemicals of concern pose in the context of products relevant for the building and construction sector. Large quantities of these chemicals are used in insulating materials, wood and wood preservatives, paints and coatings, and flame retardants. They also include chemicals that have long been prohibited but that nevertheless continue to enter the environment because of the long lifecycle of buildings and structures. As a result, chemicals used in construction during the 1960s and 1970s can still enter the environment – during demolition, for example. The authors see a particular need for increasing circularity in the construction industry.
The selection of chemicals of concern is aligned with the content of the UNEP report "Towards a Pollution-Free Planet".
The authors define three categories of hazardous chemicals:
- Category 1: Chemicals already prohibited by international agreements like the Stockholm or Rotterdam Conventions
- Category 2: Chemicals proven to be harmful to health or the environment, but not yet included in the conventions noted above
- Category 3: Hazardous chemicals with a potential for endocrine-disruption and pending scientific proof
In this context: information on asbestos on the BAuA homepage - from wonder mineral to hazardous legacy