Concrete Perspectives October 2014

Construction sector

  • On 16 October 2014, the ECO-Platform (Platform of Environmental Product Declaration programmes in Europe) organised an EPD hand-over event where the first ECO Platform EPDs were handed over. The ECO-Platform’s aim is o achieve mutual recognition across Europe of EPDs according to EN15804.

    ECO-Platform

  • McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) published a new report on the Affordable Housing Challenge. It states that “Decent, affordable housing is fundamental to the health and well-being of people and to the smooth functioning of economies” and looking for the answer how the housing gap could be reduced.

MGI – A blueprint for addressing the global affordable housing challenge

  • The Concrete Initiative issued its first quarterly newsletter. The edition October 2014 is available here.

  • On 27 October 2014, The Concrete Initiative held its first Thematic Lunch on “Bridging the gap between technical feasibility & policy needs”.

Please find here the Press Release of The Concrete Initiative.

Live from the European Union

New Juncker Commission 2014-2019

On 22 October, the European Parliament adopted the new Juncker Commission over a grand coalition of Socialists and centre-right MEPs. Please find below a list of Commissioners who are the most relevant for our industry.

Jean-Claude Junkcer (LU)

President

Frans Timmermans (NL)

Vice- President- Better Regulation, Inter-Institutional Relations, Rule of Law & Charter of Fundamental Rights

Jyrki Katainen (FI)

Vice-President – Jobs, Growth, Investment & Competitiveness

Elżbieta Bieńkowska (PL)

Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Enterprise and SMEs

Pierre Moscovici (FR)

Commissioner for Economic & Financial Affairs, Taxation & Customs

Marianne Thyssen (BE)

Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills & Labour Mobility

Miguel Arias Cañete (ES)

Commissioner for Climate Action & Energy

Jonathan Hill (UK)

Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services & Capital Markets Union

Karmenu Vella (MT)

Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs & Fisheries

The new Commission will start to operate from 1 November 2014 and run for the next five years.

For further information please visit the European Commission’s website.

Health and Safety Best Practices

BFBN- (Bond van Fabrikanten van Betonproducten in Nederland) – The Netherlands

(written by Henk Schuur)

The Dutch law requires that an employer informs his workers effectively on his tasks that have to be performed and on the health and safety risks of these tasks. The employer has to take into account the language proficiency of the worker. For Dutch workers BFBN has set up a set of videos concerning several health and safety risks in our industry, which are available already from 2013.

However in recent years more and more different languages can be heard at the workplaces and workers still have to perform their tasks as explained by the employer. This is can be a challenge because not all workers in our industry speak Dutch very well. This can lead to misunderstandings and to an increased risk of accidents.

Therefore the Dutch association BFBN translated this set of health and safety videos into a Polish and into an English version. Employers and workers in the industry can now get access to the safety videos and follow them in a language in which they feel more comfortable. A specific set of videos is coupled to a specific task of the workers. Once the videos were watched, the worker has to answer several questions.

After completing the questions with correct answers, the worker can print a certificate which states that the H&S videos have been understood.

With these videos in different languages the BFBN aims at a higher level of safety awareness of the workers in the precast industry, also for workers whose mother tongue is not Dutch.

News in brief

Agenda

NOVEMBER

13 November 2014

CPE – TG CPR implementation

Brussels, Belgium

17 November 2014

The Concrete Initiative – Meeting with marketing experts

Brussels, Belgium

18 November 2014

CPE – CPR WG meeting

Brussels, Belgium

21 November 2014

CPE – Sustainable WG meeting

Brussels, Belgium

26 November 2014 (tbc)

The Concrete Initiative – Launch in the Parliament

Strasbourg, France

DECEMBER

1 December 2014 (PM)

BIBM Communication Commission

Brussels, Belgium

2 December 2014

BIBM General Assembly

Brussels, Belgium

JANUARY

8 January 2014

BIBM advocacy event

Brussels, Belgium

12 January 2014

Masonry Alliance

Brussels, Belgium

14 January 2014-10-24

CEN/TC 229/WG 1 and WG 4

Brussels, Belgium

23-23 January 2014-10-24

Safecladding

Brussels, Belgium

27 January 2014-10-24

Masonry Alliance Dinner

Brussels, Belgium

To the Newsletter of Construction Products Europe (former CEPMC), please follow this link.

To read the Newsletter of CEMBUREAU, please follow this link. You can also subscribe directly following this link http://www.cembureau.eu/newsletter/subscriptions.

List of Acronyms

CPE- Construction Product Europe

CPR- Construction Products Regulation

ECP- European Concrete Platform