16 March 2015

New environmental declarations for Ruukki's construction products have now been released. Covering the period of a product's life cycle, a declaration includes information about the environmental impact, material content and other environmental issues related to the product.

According to life cycle cost calculations, the environmental impact of some Ruukki products is significantly smaller than the impact of several other similar products. The environmental impact of Ruukki's steel constructions can be up to 20 % smaller than the impact of an average similar European product, which also significantly reduces the environmental impact regarding the overall impact of a building. However, the environmental impact accumulated during the life cycle of Ruukki's energy-efficient life panel is lower than the traditional panel's: the amount of recycled material used in the panel has been doubled, and the climate change impact is cut by as much as 20 % compared to traditional panels.

The popularity of different types of environmental classifications has increased the demand for environmental declarations. The environmental declarations are an important and helpful tool for Skanska, among others: "The aim of Skanska is to minimize the environmental impact of our projects and operation, and to keep it as small as possible. In order to reach our goal, one of the things we want to understand is what makes the products and services that we use more environmentally friendly because we want to grow their share of our procurement in the future. The environmental declarations make the supply chain even more transparent and provide more reliable information about the products' environmental characteristics and origins. Also, information offered by the environmental declarations supports our aspirations to cut down the size of a product's carbon footprint accumulated during its life cycle," says Kaisa Kekki, Sustainability Manager at Skanska. Ruukki's construction products can contribute to increasing the LEED and BREEAM rating of a building.

The environmental product declarations have been published for steel constructions, sandwich panels, as well as construction products made from both color-coated and galvanized coil. In addition to the environmental impact accumulated during a product's life cycle, the environmental declarations inform the user about the composition, production, procurement, packaging and transport, waste treatment, and the safe use and installation of a product. The product declarations follow the EN 15804 standard to meet the customers' requirements.

The declarations are available in English on the Ruukki website: www.ruukki.com/epd

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