In an effort to help synthetic turf manufacturers more clearly and accurately signpost the environmental performance of their products, the EMEA Synthetic Turf Council (ESTC) has announced the launch of a new life cycle assessment (LCA) tool.
The new tool has been put in place as the official mechanism for the synthetic turf industry in Europe but is also available for voluntary use by stakeholders elsewhere in the world, with licenses available to both members and non-members upon request.
It has been developed to align with the European Commission’s new Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) that provide guidance for the calculation and reporting of environmental impacts of the entire product life cycle of synthetic turf surfaces.
The synthetic turf industry is among the first to volunteer to implement industry-specific category rules as it looks to underline its commitment to transparency around environmental impact and affirm its status as a forward-thinking industry with sustainability as one of its principal core values.
The new Category Rules have been developed in close collaboration with the European Commission (EC), as well as LCA specialists, and international sports federations including UEFA and FIFA.
Together with consultant PRé Sustainability, ESTC has developed a software tool that consistently calculates accurate environmental impact results aligned with the PEFCR.
The aim of the tool is to simplify both input and output for synthetic turf manufacturers, by only collecting mandatory, company-specific data. Results are then presented as single score figures via a non-expert dashboard. Crucially, this offers comparable, fair results between different products and industry benchmarks, resulting in greater standardisation of environmental claims across different companies and products.
Stefan Diderich, CEO of EMEA Synthetic Turf Council (ESTC), said: “As an industry, we recognise the need for greater transparency around the environmental impact of our products, as we help specifiers and buyers to make much more informed decisions around the synthetic turf they choose to invest in.
“We volunteered to be one of the first to adopt the European Commission’s new Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules to underline our commitment to environmental sustainability, which remains one of our core values at ESTC.
“By developing the tool, we can also meet the needs of those SMEs that don’t have the in-house teams, time or budgets to validate and follow good-quality LCA processes, but have a vital role to play in delivering products which minimise environmental impact.”
