4 questions to Myriam DARDARD, energetic and environmental performance project manager of PROMOTELEC Association
The French label “Promotelec Habitat Neuf” encourages building professionals to appropriate consideration of environmental impacts of construction, through PEPs
1) To whom addresses the new French label “Promotelec Habitat Neuf”, and what is its purpose ?
The French Label “Promotelec Habitat Neuf” addresses all buildings (individual or collective, social or private). It provides appropriate responses to social issues – as the ageing of the population and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions - and to the different needs of territories, particularly in terms of quality and integration of urban and environmental construction operations and eco-mobility. It also takes into account the needs and expectations of users in terms of comfort since it includes housing summer comfort, the quality of indoor air and energy performance. Finally, it aims to allow occupants to adopt new behaviors for a better use of energy and housing. The French Label “Promotelec Habitat Neuf” assists owners in the awareness of environmental and health impacts (air quality), with an adaptation to their financial capacity. It allows them to take new challenges and methodological frameworks based on a simple assessment, progressive and educational, not greedy in engineering, and which privileges the statistical approach to the analytical approach. Promotelec has also created supporting tools, both for the developer and the purchaser, which assess the carbon footprint of operations and CO2 emissions generated by energy consumption of housing, and travel from home to work.
2) How this French label “Promotelec Habitat Neuf” is represented?
Specifically, this label is made from a base station with mandatory requirements on the global technical quality of the building. Those requirements are based on the different regulations affecting the building construction – thermal, acoustic, electric and gas security – and the quality of installed equipments all of which are products with a quality certification.
For owners who wish to broaden their approach beyond energy performance, two additional mentions are optional: the mention "Habitat adapté à chacun" and the mention "Habitat respectueux de l’environnement" They support the exemplary approaches and prepare building actors to the future developments. For those mentions, the owner selects among multiple criteria in a list which is proposed. It can adapt its certification to the specific objectives of the project.
3) Why emphasize on the notion of « environment » in the 2014 version of the repository?
The French law “Grenelle 2” of 2010/07/12 provides the ability to define a future regulatory label that allows the consideration of environmental requirements (energy, CO2, water and waste) and covers the whole life cycle of the building.
The mention “Habitat respectueux de l’environnement” of the new Label Promotelec prepares this future environmental label: besides the energy issue, it includes the reduction of CO2 emissions, the control of water consumption and a better waste management. It offers a first approach to biodiversity. But it goes further: it provides a bridge between the present obligation of means and a possible future obligation of results. In this, it opens the way to what will be the building of tomorrow, with a pedagogical approach.
4) Why PEPs provide answers to the Promotelec repository requirements?
The label Promotelec “Habitat Neuf” encourages all building professionals to appropriate consideration of environmental and health impacts of construction on its entire life cycle. The availability of these data for equipment is an essential step towards modeling the operation of buildings over their life cycle.
That is why one of the indicators of the mention “Habitat respectueux de l’environnement” regards environmental information for the used materials and equipments. PEPs provide reliable information on the product environmental impacts. It shows the product environmental profile by measuring its impact on air, water, soil and natural resources. They help to meet the requirements of this indicator. More information on the Promotelec label on http://www.promotelec.com/