7 July 2020

The European Parliament’s ITRE committee has voted on the Own Initiative Report “Maximising the Energy Efficiency Potential of the EU building stock”. The rapporteur Ciaran Cuffe and shadow rapporteurs expressly used this text as an opportunity to include and address features other than strict energy efficiency measures.

We are delighted to see fire safety covered in three paragraphs in this dossier:

- Paragraph 19a: refers to the content of the EPBD regarding seismic and fire safety

- Paragraph 19aa: echoes the 7 layers of fire safety which is great new as it considers fire safety in a holistic way:

“Recalls that fire safety aspects should be considered during the design, selection of materials, construction, renovation and operation of buildings in prevention, detection, early suppression, evacuation, compartmentation, structural resistance and fire-fighting, as well as the relevant competencies of professionals involved during design, construction and renovation;”

- Paragraph 25: This paragraph goes further and refers to [Fire] Safety Competency that also echoes what the Modern Building Alliance advocates in its Call for Action:

“... underlines that ensuring quality, compliance, and safety requires adequate competencies and skills of professionals involved during the design and construction/renovation...”

This vote is a crucial step and a clear signal from the European Parliament to ensure that fire safety is adequately addressed during the renovation of the building stock, with a holistic, performance-based and material-neutral approach that relies on the competencies and skills of professionals. The Modern Building Alliance welcomes this vote and approach.

Link to the compromised text voted

1 July 2020

The Executive Agency for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (EASME) has launched an online public consultation to gather advice from stakeholders on the needs and solutions to increase the number of trained and qualified building professionals across Europe. The Modern Building Alliance has taken advantage of this opportunity to point out once again how important it is for fire safety skills and competencies to accompany building renovation processes and to do so in a holistic way.

The public consultation focused on which qualified building professionals are necessary to deliver high-energy performance building renovations and new nearly zero-energy buildings.

In its answer, the Modern Building Alliance highlighted the importance of including fire safety-related competencies in future eligible fields for financing, which can include for example the involvement of fire safety engineers during building design, or fire and electrical safety experts undertaking regular inspections.

Quentin de Hults says: “We want to bring to the attention of the European Commission that Fire Safety skills are - too often - not sufficiently considered as part of the renovation process. Fire safety is a complex issue with many aspects to be considered, which requires the right skills and competencies. The role of fire safety engineers/experts is not sufficiently recognised. If we want fire safety to accompany the transformation of the building stock, it must start with the right recognition of the skills needed.”

All information

27 May 2020

Update: The project' website is accessible here: https://eufirestat.efectisfrance.fr/

The European Commission has selected a consortium of experts for the pilot project “Closing the data gaps and paving the way for pan-European fire safety efforts” that has been initiated in the European Parliament.

The project is related to the collection of fire safety data and statistics across the EU and will run for 17 months.

Efectis will lead the consortium, which is composed of the European Fire Safety Alliance (EuroFSA), the Confederation of Fire Protection Associations Europe (CFPA-Europe), the CTIF (International Association of Fire and Rescue Services), the NFPA (US National Fire Protection Association), The University of Edinburgh,  The University of Lund, the DBI (Danish Institute of Fire and Security Technology), the VFDB (German Fire Protection Association) and the BAM (German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing).

Data are essential to identify risk factors and most effective fire prevention measures because EU-wide statistics are currently either not harmonised or do not exist. The conclusions and output of the experts’ work will facilitate a broader accounting of fire incidents and will also give the EU and national governments the opportunity to identify the most effective fire safety measures more accurately.

The Modern Building Alliance calls for the inclusion of fire statistics within the Eurostat mandatory programme and considers this project as an excellent first step.

Full story about the pilot project

25 May 2020 

As part of the project initiated within the ITRE Committee, MEP Ciarán Cuffe (Group of the Greens, Ireland) is currently the rapporteur of the “Draft report on maximising the energy efficiency potential of the EU building stock”.

The aim of the report is as follows: it “examines the potential of energy efficiency in buildings, and, in the context of the current crisis suggests that a European renovation wave could assist with an economic recovery by creating local jobs, upskilling workers, and creating resilient communities”.

This Own Initiative Report has been utilised as an opportunity by different political groups to include considerations other than strict energy efficiency aspects. In particular, fire safety appears more than once:

• There is a proposition by the EPP group to “underline that energy renovation is an opportunity to undertake safety checks (e.g. electrical safety, fire safety features)”. The Modern Building Alliance fully supports this message;
• Another proposition by the EPP group seeks to “underline that ensuring quality, compliance and (fire) safety requires adequate competencies and skills of professionals involved during design and construction/renovation”, which echoes our Call for Action on fire safety competency;
• Finally, a number of MEPs from Renew have drafted a proposition to “recall that fire safety aspects should be considered during the design, construction, renovation and operation of buildings” and referred to the 7 layers of fire safety in buildings: “prevention, detection, early suppression, evacuation, compartmentation, structural safety and firefighting”.

The Modern Building Alliance welcomes these amendments that pave the way for further enhanced fire safety and will continue to engage with Members of the European Parliament to support the EU in ensuring safe and sustainable construction for citizens.

The text and amendments are due to be put to the vote in July.

Full draft

ITRE - Amendments

7 May 2020

The British Standards Institution (BSI) has revised its test method for the fire performance of external cladding systems (BS 8414 Fire performance of external cladding systems).

The purpose of the large-scale façade test method is to provide data that enables the evaluation of the fire performance of the cladding components tested as a system.

The standard is split into two parts:

• Part 1: Test method for non-loadbearing external cladding systems applied to the masonry face of a building
• Part 2: Test method for non-loadbearing external cladding systems fixed to and supported by a structural steel frame

Large scale tests are regularly applied by our industry as an important aspect to validate the fire safety of facade systems considering the interaction between the different elements. BS 8414 is considered as a reference beyond UK and, together with the German standard DIN 4120-20, is the basis of the on-going development of a European assessment method.

More information