Construction Fixings

By Barbara Sorgato, secretary general, European Consortium of Anchor Producers (ECAP)

The ECAP Working Group meets once a year, with experts of fasteners and connectors discussing the technical challenges posed by European Assessment Documents, and by drafts of standards, as well as to define common strategies for each product. Whilst these experts speak different languages, and have various nationalities, they all share one similarity – they have dedicated technical knowledge and are qualified experts in the traditional branches of engineering, including civil engineering, materials engineering, chemistry and mechanics – but this might not be sufficient to address particular topics in the new CPR.

The knowledge and experience of the ECAP Working Group was once again relied upon with the publication of the new Construction Products Regulation (CPR). Similarly to when the CPR was first published in 2011 – the year when the construction world moved from the Construction Products Directive to the Construction Products Regulation – discussions have once again expanded to include the legal background, which is essential for preparing technical strategies. 

The sense of annoyance at having to deal with legal issues, and the related invectives against “the bureaucrats at the European Commission who don’t understand the real world”, has been – and still is – the complaint that all European technicians have agreed on for the past 15 years. 

In recent meetings, however, technicians have also shared the unpleasant feeling that their technical training may finally not be enough to address the cross-cutting issues that permeate and underlie all European standardisation activity under the new CPR, especially when it comes to digitisation and sustainability. This feeling, combined with the need to remain in the comfort zone of a familiar field (ETAs, sustainability limited to EPDs) is resulting into a sort of disconnection between the technical world and the impending changes brought by the new CPR.

Since the beginning of ECAP, members have asked the association to look ahead to secure their business. For ECAP, this request so far has translated into a variety of projects, including:

• Participating in technical discussions on draft EADs and their many revisions and variants, within the Experts Group Fixings meetings at the German TAB Deutsches Institut für Bautechnik (DIBt).
• Participation in EOTA policy discussion within the EOTA Technical Board meetings (appointed by CPE, the Construction Products Europe association).
• Holding the convenorship of the technical group CEN TC 124 WG4: ‘Timber structures – Connectors’.
• Participation in committees on other connectors and fastening systems (e.g bonded-in rods, powder actuated tools).
• Participation in the work of the Eurocodes for concrete structures, timber structures and seismic actions, as well as in their parent committee CEN TC 250 – to help clarify the connection between Eurocodes and ETAs.

With the arrival of the new CPR, however, following these issues may no longer be enough to secure businesses. On the one hand, participation in drafting EADs is less and less a technical issue and more and more an ‘after the fact’ information – because of the very role of EADs (requested by a single manufacturer to a single TAB). On the other hand, writing a standard on connectors, with the new CPR, means having to also write the chapters on sustainability, i.e. decide on the data that a manufacturer will have to put in the Declaration of
Performance and Conformity (which is not the same as having an Environmental Products Declaration); and it means also having to
equip the manufacturer with the elements to be able to handle the thousands of pieces of information required by the new CPR – to prepare the practical tool of what will become part of the Digital Product Passport. 

Consequently, in addition to the activity mentioned above, ECAP is investing in the work of the CEN technical tables on sustainability and digitisation (to follow up on which ECAP employs specialised consultants working alongside ECAP), as well as participation in CEN Sectoral fora on construction, to follow the thread of all cross-cutting information.

Expanding the work to further technical tables, however, is not enough, because the standardisation mechanism is closely linked to the legal mechanism. The European Commission is involving Member States and industry in the drafting of the legal basis for construction products to unlock the publication of standards. Industry participation is limited to a few key European organisations, of which ECAP is a member, to gather all information and ensure its presence at strategic decision points for industry.

ECAP also invests in participation in European Commission meetings on the drafting of the legal basis behind timber connectors standards, work that is also reflected in the work of CEN TC 124 WG4. To add to this, ECAP participates (appointed by SBS, the Small Business Standards association) in meetings of the European Commission: ‘Standing Committee on Construction Products’; as well as participating in the activities of CEN TC 124 WG7, a cross-sectional group that summarises the timber products industry’s demands into documents, some of which are drafted with the support of ECAP consultants.

The work on timber connectors requires considerable effort from ECAP. Looking ahead, however, the work is not only pertinent to this area of fastening; it is also needed to prepare ECAP members to meet the challenges of moving post installed fasteners to standardisation, an unknown that weighs on anyone invested in ETAs.

The mandate that ECAP receives from its general assembly, and whose workplan is updated annually based on the discussions and needs of its members, is to document and decode, in a straightforward way, information so that it can be understood by technicians; train technicians toward a new specialised figure required by the new CPR; translate theory into the first practical actions to be taken as a company; and prepare companies for the changes that will take place in order to understand where, how and whether to invest.

This year’s ECAP general assembly will be held from 25^th – 26^th June in Lisbon, Portugal. ECAP general assembly is held each year in a different country, to emphasise its European character. By meeting and discussing topics with each other, ECAP members, while all competing in the European and global markets, are able to ‘armour’ themselves and prepare for change. 

I will add that at this moment in history, fighting in technical discussions armed with only technical documents is a relief, and a wonderful opportunity offered by European democracy. An opportunity we need to be aware of and should never take for granted.