The Environmental Cost Indicator (ECI) expresses your environmental impact in monetary terms. With an ECI score for your product, you can participate in public tenders. Additionally, you can compare your product with others and, where necessary, improve it.
MKI-score for Dutch tenders
Environmental costs in valuta
Communicate the real price
ECI scores for Dutch tenders in construction and civil engineering.
ECI scores for construction products for the Dutch Nationale Milieudatabase.
ECI scores to communicate environmental costs to your consumers.
Compare your product with competitors.
Compare the environmental impact of your product with others.
Formulate an ECI score for your tender.
Gain a competitive edge with your ECI score.
Add your verified ECI to the National Environmental Database.
Our 3-Step Approach
We specify the goals and scope of your ECI based on your needs and the purpose of the ECI score.
Together, we gather the required data in customised data sheets, with guidance as needed.
We deliver the ECI for your product, material, or construction project and assist with any verification by an external auditor.
Our experienced team carries out the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which forms the basis for your ECI. We have already helped many organisations calculate ECI scores for their products, including steel sheet piles and rails, civil engineering products such as mooring posts, biobased insulation materials, and many others.
Whether you’re a large or small business, a start-up or an SME, or whether it’s about a product or project, we act quickly to calculate your ECI. This way, you can use these insights to take the next step.
Check out our FAQs or ask us anything that is not fully covered by sending us a message.
The ECI, or Environmental Cost Indicator, is a single-score indicator that expresses environmental costs in monetary value (euros). The indicator is a weighted average of several impact categories and reflects the cost of the total environmental impact of a product or project.
This is done using the shadow price methodology.The costs are calculated across the entire product life cycle: production phase, use phase, and end-of-life processing. The ECI score aims to make it easy to compare various environmental effects.
The first step to your ECI is a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). An LCA determines your total environmental impact at every stage of a product's life cycle. The environmental impact is calculated for 11 relevant impact categories.
The LCA results are then assigned a monetary weight (€) and summed to create a single-score indicator: the ECI score.
The requirements for calculating the MKI are outlined in the NMD-Bepalingsmethode (Milieuprestatie van bouwwerken). This consists of several steps. The calculation starts with collecting the correct data, such as electricity consumption, transport, materials, chemicals, etc. Emissions to air or soil are also included.
An ECI score provides a single-score indicator of your environmental impact, expressed in euros. This way, you can see where the environmental impact of your product comes from, considering multiple impact categories. You can also compare your product with alternative products.
The LCA provides results on environmental impact in 11 relevant impact categories. These results are multiplied by a weighting factor in euros per kg, known as the shadow price. This gives a weighted average, which is the ECI score.
The shadow price represents the maximum cost to prevent environmental damage. It is a fictional price for environmental damage and serves as an effective benchmark for comparing the environmental impact of different materials.
For example, the shadow price for the climate change impact category is €0.05 per kg of CO₂ equivalent. Therefore, for an emission of 20 kg CO₂ equivalent, the MKI would be €1.00.
A lower MKI means lower environmental impact, indicating a more favourable environmental performance of the product.
Note: Starting from January 1, 2025, a new weighting set will be introduced for construction products (effective from July 1), based on 19 impact categories from EN15804+A2. The weighting factor for climate change will increase to 0.116.
With the ECI score, you can calculate the Environmental Performance of Buildings (MPG). The MPG score is the EC score per square metre of gross floor area, over the building's lifespan (50 or 75 years). This takes into account the score of all materials used in the building.
The total costs are divided by the gross floor area and the building's lifespan.Lower ECI scores lead to a lower MPG score. In this way, users of MPG tools can select your product to achieve a low MPG score at the building level.
An ECI score starts with conducting a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Data is required for the LCA. The time it takes to collect this data largely determines how long it will take to complete the LCA.
Data collection varies depending on the product and supply chain. On average, our clients take 1–3 months to collect the data, under our guidance. The total time to calculate an ECI typically takes 3–5 months.
Additional time may be required for the ECI verification process.
Data is required to calculate the total environmental impact. This includes data on raw materials and materials used—type, quantity, and origin. You will also need data on the production process—energy consumption, type of energy, efficiency/loss during production, and transportation.
Additionally, information about transportation methods, fuel, and distances is required. Depending on the application, some LCA's also include the usage and disposal phases, which means data on energy consumption, product lifespan, maintenance, disposal and recycling options, and waste streams.
This depends on your product: sometimes all the data is available within your organisation, but in other cases, you may need to request it from suppliers of raw materials or semi-finished products.
We provide a tailor-made data sheet to help you easily and clearly collect the required information. Additionally, our LCA team will assist and facilitate you throughout this phase.
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