The NonHazCity Building Award for Promoting Circular and Environmentally Friendly Construction is the first such award aimed at recognizing and highlighting best practices in construction in the Baltic Sea region countries. The award ceremony will take place at the end of this year; therefore, interviews are currently being conducted with candidates, experts involved in the development of the guidelines, as well as professionals from the construction sector, university lecturers, and other specialists.
The Latvian Construction Association (LCA), with the involvement of experts, developed these guidelines within the framework of the European Commission's LIFE Waste to Resources IP project to promote sustainable construction in Latvia. The developed document includes a mapping of construction waste fractions and codes, a summary of current construction and waste management regulatory requirements, a distribution of responsibilities between construction and waste management specialists in the management of construction waste on-site for commercial and public construction projects, a definition of general principles for handling hazardous and non-hazardous construction waste, an explanation of requirements for waste recovery on-site, and other related topics.
"The nomination for the award is already a great recognition, indicating that the interest and ability of construction companies to build green and sustainably are being acknowledged. Undeniably, an appropriate regulatory framework in the field of green construction is one of the prerequisites for having more sustainable and at the same time energy-efficient passive buildings in Latvia. A number of companies and organizations interested in construction and environmental issues participated in the preparation of the guidelines, so we hope for a positive final evaluation at the end of the year," concludes Edijs Kupčs, Chairman of the Board of the Latvian Construction Association.
The European Commission is committed to implementing the circular economy in six priority sectors, including construction and buildings. Given the European Commission's commitment to using the Level(s) system, the LCA, in preparing the guidelines, integrated this methodology and offers the use of these unified system templates for planning and managing their resource flows. This spring, the LCA will organize a seminar for interested parties to promote the implementation of the developed guidelines in practice.
The NonHazCity Building Award is part of the European Regional Development Fund project NonHazCity activities to reduce the presence of harmful substances in building materials, protect human health, and promote circular economy principles in construction.
Additional information:
About the LIFE Waste to Resources IP
LCA developed guidelines and proposals for the Construction Products and Construction Waste Circular System in Latvia, participating in the European Commission’s LIFE integrated project "Waste to Resources Latvia - boosting regional sustainability and circularity ” (LIFE Waste To Resources IP, LIFE20 IPE/LV/000014).
About the guidelines
The guidelines developed by LBA are available here.
About the NonHazCity Building Award
Information is available on the project website here.
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