In November 2020 General Membrane obtained a new international certification in the field of environmental sustainability policies: UNI EN ISO 14021, which allows the issuing of self-declared environmental product claims directly by the certified company.
The UNI EN ISO 14021 standard covers various specific environmental aspects linked to the product; among these, the criteria of "recycled material content" (for bituminous membranes and insulating materials) and "recyclability" (for bituminous membranes) were considered relevant.
Recycling of materials is nowadays a very important resource for safeguarding the environment, and forms an integral part of the emerging concept of circular economy: the use of raw materials is reduced and compensated for by the waste and scrap of the first production cycle which are recycled, i.e. put back into production, becoming secondary raw materials and thus reducing the environmental impact (fewer virgin resources used and fewer products thrown away for disposal). It therefore encourages a shift from the "take, produce, dispose" philosophy, typical of the linear economy, to the "recycle, reuse, reduce" philosophy.
In order to obtain the certification of environmental product assertion, in particular regarding the recycled content, it has been necessary to carry out a survey on all the raw materials used and to select only those with a certification of recycled origin; and subsequently to develop a specific calculation method, submitted to the verification of the certifying body, that allows General Membrane to carry out the environmental assertion, expressed in percentage of recycled material compared to the total mass of the product.
The Company is able to issue a statement for each single batch produced, thanks to the 14021 certification and to the Quality Management System (UNI EN ISO 9001 certification) that guarantees the traceability using the unique code applied to the supplied products.
The environmental statement is available before and after delivery. If the request for documentation is made before the material is supplied, General Membrane will provide an assertion indicating the minimum value of recycled content recorded during the previous 12 months, as a precautionary measure: this value, in fact, varies over time according to the availability of recycled materials. After delivery of the finished product, the actual percentage will be calculated and will always be equal to or greater than the minimum declared value.
The conformity of the systems adopted by the Company is subject to periodic annual verification by the SGS certification body.
