KAN Report 36

	Occupational health and safety aspects in standards governing construction products and their uses, 02/2006, Institut für Bauforschung e. V. (2 MB)
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Summary

Standardization in the area of construction products is based to a large extent upon Council Directive 89/106/EEC of 21 December 1988 on the approximation of laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to construction products. Technical requirements for construction products are set out in harmonized European product standards or European technical approvals. These documents govern an exceptionally wide range of products, since under Article 1 (2) of the directive, "any product which is produced for incorporation in a permanent manner in construction works" is regarded as a construction product.

The purpose of the present study was to identify what areas of standardization under the Construction Products Directive are affected by issues of product safety from an OH&S perspective. From the results, a reference scheme was defined by means of which KAN can monitor standards projects at national, European and international level in accordance with specific objectives, and focus its activity on certain key issues within the standardization of construction products.

Based upon the results of this orientation study, a selection of standards are examined in a follow-on study with regard to the particular occupational health and safety issues which they raise.