HOW CONSTRUCTION PRODUCT MANUFACTURERS CAN HELP SPECIFIERS FIND THE INFORMATION THEY NEED

It is more than five years since Dame Judith Hackitt’s independent review of building regulations and fire safety was published. In that time, the government and the construction industry have begun implementing the review’s recommendations, through new legislation and initiatives aimed at addressing areas such as competence and construction product information.

An independent review of the construction product testing regime has also taken place. In the introduction to the review, Dame Judith Hackitt herself writes: “It should be self-evident to everyone that we need products which do the job they are expected to do and are marketed honestly and transparently…”

Such a sentiment doesn’t just apply to building safety. Sustainability and environmental impact have never been more prominent. Specifiers and purchasers need product manufacturers to provide clear and accurate information that helps them make informed decisions.

It’s not uncommon to read reports about specifiers struggling to find information they need, or trying to make sense of performance claims that can’t be verified. If the construction products sector is to do better, collaboration can help to achieve a common understanding about what is and isn’t good practice. A good start is sharing successes and failures, which is the intention behind this article.

What challenges are specifiers facing when it comes to construction product information?

Widely reported in the construction media, NBS’s ‘What Specifiers Want’ report was published in 2023. Among its findings was that nearly half of construction professionals said it isn’t easy to find information about products’ safety performance and sustainability.

This is despite a significant majority of respondents, unsurprisingly, wanting to see third-party accreditation and environmental product declarations (EPDs).

In a separate survey carried out by Futurebuild and the Anti-Greenwash Charter, nearly 90% of those surveyed identified greenwash as a problem. Half of respondents said they had been in face-to-face discussions where unverifiable claims were made about the environmental performance of a product.

Organisations are finding ways to tackle these issues, such as by simply asking more challenging questions of manufacturers, or having specific policies in place about only choosing products when performance claims can be verified.

How can product manufacturers help to reduce the challenges for specifiers?

There is an obvious answer to this question, which is simple in theory but difficult in practice: be open and transparent about your products, and honest about their performance.

Why is this difficult in practice? Because most manufacturers have extensive product ranges. And if they offer systems of components, then there might be even more potential variations in the available solutions.

Then factor in the number of different people the manufacturer employs, and their different levels of knowledge to perform their different roles. Also factor in the number of different places where the manufacturer makes product information available – and whether they are likely to all be up to date at the same time.

However open, honest and transparent a manufacturer aims to be, ensuring consistency across an organisation is not the work of a moment.

Is the Code for Construction Product Information the answer?

The Code for Construction Product Information (CCPI), set up by the Construction Product Association’s (CPA’s) Marketing Integrity Group (MIG), acknowledges this complexity. Manufacturers signing up to the CCPI have specific product groups assessed. At this stage, therefore, it is extremely unlikely that any manufacturer supporting the Code will have every product assessed.

When the Code was first consulted upon, it was notable that architects and design professionals who responded to the consultation seemed to be broadly in favour. A number of responses, however, centred on manufacturers offering specific types of information – especially around sustainability and environmental impact.

The objective of the CCPI is not to make manufacturers provide particular information that design professionals and specifiers want or will find useful. It is to give reassurance that the information they do provide meets the five criteria set out by the Code.

At Polyfoam XPS, we have taken steps to review our marketing material against the Code’s principles. This is preparing us for eventual adoption of the Code, while we continue to follow the progress made by early adopters.

What is Polyfoam XPS doing to provide clearer information to specifiers?

Let’s return for a moment to the earlier quote from Dame Judith Hackitt, which alludes to the separate issues of product data/performance, and the marketing messages that accompany the underpinning data. For Polyfoam, having our product data clear and readily available for specifiers is the priority.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) have previously produced an excellent plain language guide to digitisation for product manufacturers. The end goal outlined by the guide is what we want to aim for, but a challenge for many manufacturers (Polyfoam included) is always going to be available resource – whether that is in terms of time, money or technology.

Therefore, we currently focus our efforts on one main third-party service to complement our website. That service is NBS Source.

Following the IET’s guide, true digitisation would mean our data on NBS automatically updates any time a change is made to our central, single data source. As that isn’t currently the reality, we have to spend time manually updating our NBS Source profile to ensure it is a true reflection of our products.

We hold regular review meetings with our NBS contacts to make sure we’re taking full advantage of the available features. By reviewing our product data on the platform every six months, it appears to specifiers as ‘verified data’. We asked NBS about this for the purposes of this article, and they said:

“Specifiers benefit from having high-quality up to date product data which comes from a manufacturer engaging with Source. The green verification tick provides them with trust and confidence.”

In return for the effort we make keeping our profile and data up to date, we gain visibility of projects on which Polyfoam XPS products are specified. From 2021 to 2022, our total number of specifications increased by 50%. And the first half of 2023 saw us match the total number of specifications from 2022. Moving into the fourth quarter of the year, we’re comfortably on track for a 100% increase in specifications year-on-year.

We see this as vindication of our efforts to provide specifiers with transparent data that is easy to find, backed up by an ethos of openness and honesty that informs the way we communicate with the wider construction industry.