Hedgehog Company, together with its partners, has successfully lobbied for an improved positioning of timber and bio-based products in the new Environmental Performance of Buildings (MPG) standards. From July 1, 2025, timber construction materials will be rated more favorably in MPG calculations. This makes timber a more attractive building material, which could give a boost to the sustainability of the construction sector.
Path to the improved rating of timber
Hedgehog Company collaborated closely on this initiative with Centrum Hout, Gideons Tribe, Building Balance, DGBC, Copper8,en Albaconcepts.
The initial trigger was that timber and other bio-based materials were disproportionately assigned a high environmental impact in previous assessments. Thus, in December 2020, a memorandum was sent to the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, highlighting the issues that proposed changes in the weighting sets would cause for the use of timber in the construction sector.
On February 23, 2024, the consultation was concluded on tightening the Environmental Performance of Buildings (MPG) and introducing a new weighting set for determining the environmental impact of buildings. This consultation showed that timber and bio-based materials were still disproportionately affected compared to traditional building materials like concrete, steel, and sand-lime brick.
By July 1, 2025, the benchmark will change from €0.8/m²/year to €0.5 for houses. As the methodology also changes and becomes more stringent – moving from 13 to 19 indicators – a new weighting set was needed. This leads to an adjusted MPG: for houses, this will be €1.00/m²/year, for apartments €1.2, offices €1.55, and for other building types, it will be €1.85.
Impact of these changes
The new MPG standards ensure that wood and bio-based materials are assessed more fairly. This makes building with these materials more attractive.
Through wood and other bio-based materials, the construction sector can become more sustainable; these materials play a crucial role in reducing the environmental impact of the construction sector. They offer beneficial properties, such as lower environmental impact during transport/construction and CO2 storage, essential for future-proof building.
Learn more about the benefits of sustainable construction and bio-based materials here.
