This British Standard provides a framework for the assessment of social,
economic and environmental issues in the sustainable use of materials. The
framework can be applied to all parts of the supply chain and is intended to
support decision making about the sustainable use of any type of material.
This standard covers consideration of:
a) the social, economic and environmental aspects throughout the material
lifecycle, covering:
1) sourcing of materials;
2) conversion of materials into products;
3) performance of a product over its functional lifetime;
4) end of life of the product and either the reuse, remanufacture,
recycling or disposal of the product; and
5) end of life of a material and either the reuse, remanufacture, recycling
or disposal of the material,
with particular emphasis on social performance in the use phase of a
product life and environmental performance over the full life cycle, and
taking into consideration the longer term and local economic issues;
b) how to balance these aspects against stakeholder priorities in terms of
sustainable development;
c) guidance on the use of decision support tools to assess the relative
sustainability of material choice; and
d) the importance of data quality when carrying out a sustainability
assessment.
NOTE This standard assumes that the project brief and material design options have
been agreed prior to the use of the assessment framework.
The standard does not provide:
i) comparisons between specific materials;
ii) advice on the properties of materials and products; or
iii) recommendations on specific software tools to support the evaluation and
comparisons of social, economic and environmental aspects.