The Construction Products Association (CPA) is seeking to address the “credibility challenge” that building product suppliers face in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire by launching an 11-clause code.
The proposed Code for Construction Product Information is out for industry-wide consultation: download the code and give your feedback by 31 March at www.buildingsafely.co.uk. The CPA plans for the code to go live later this year, subject to legal review.
The code, developed by the CPA’s Marketing Integrity Group (MIG), aims to set the benchmark for how product information is presented and marketed by manufacturers.
Following industry feedback, five criteria underline the code: in order to be trusted, product and performance information must be clear, accurate, up-to-date, accessible and unambiguous. It is proposed that the Considerate Constructors Scheme administrate the code.
CPA chief executive Peter Caplehorn said: “The importance of this new code and consultation process will be obvious to all those working in the built environment post-Grenfell. It is our responsibility as an industry to regain public trust and credibility in what we do, and to demonstrate that technical competence can be trusted. I believe the code represents both a determined attempt on behalf of manufacturers to correct disingenuous marketing practices and a proactive and collaborative effort to address the issues highlighted in Dame Judith Hackitt’s Report.
“We are reaching out to every organisation across the construction supply chain, whether that be manufacturers, specifiers, suppliers, distributors, contractors or installers. I hope businesses and individuals will embrace the opportunity to be involved, and recognise the urgency of change that is needed for our industry to ensure safe buildings.”
MIG Chair Adam Turk adds: “Once formally launched later this year, I challenge all construction product manufacturers to embrace the principles of this code, and I implore all those that use our information to work only with those manufacturers that are registered as code-compliant and who can show their own CCPI-registered and numbered logo on their material. It is only by embracing this push and pull that we will see the new code adopted as commonplace, setting the standard for the communication of construction product information.”
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