On 25th March 2015 in Warsaw, Poland the National Workshop on ECOLABEL methodology criteria and weights took place. The workshop was held by the National Energy Conservation Agency S.A. (NAPE) with the help of INVESTEKO from Katowice, Poland. The workshop was organised as a part of the Task 2.1 (Consensus building for the definition of the Sustainability certification methodology criteria and weights) for each of the member states covered by the consortium. As Poland was represented in the consortium by two Polish companies – NAPE and INVESTEKO, a collaborative action was taken to organise the workshop, according to the Task 2.1 assumptions. The main role of these national workshops was to identify regional peculiarities, idiosyncrasies and local parameters that might be taking into account to develop a really harmonised methodology.

In order to receive the best output of the meeting and to have a fruitful discussion, institutions representing different stakeholder groups were invited to join the workshop. Participants included representatives from research institutions (Rzeszow Technical University, Warsaw University of Technology), road infrastructure designer and supervisor (Promost Consulting), environmental consultancy SMEs (Investeko, NAPE S.A.) and, construction management company (Promost Consulting). The national and regional road authorities were also invited to take part in the workshop, but unfortunately nobody was able to join.

The meeting was divided into three main parts. In the first part, general project goals, Work Packages and main tasks were presented. The current progress in the project work and the timing schedule was discussed. The first part was held by NAPE, represented by Chairman Andrzej Wiszniewski and Karol Nurzyński. In the second part, methodology assumptions and defined KPIs were described by Piotr Góral from INVESTEKO. Then Karol Nurzyński had a presentation about Green Public Procurement and the possibility of using the methodology as a GPP certification scheme. The last part of the meeting was a thematic workshop on Key Performance Indicators and the possibilities of its implementation in Polish reality. Opportunities/threats regarding the possible use of the certification scheme in Poland were discussed as well. Two different tracks of the certificate scheme were discussed among participants: LCE4ROADS as a GPP tool and as an independent certificate.

During the workshop, the most important issues related to the methodology was discussed among the participants. Promost Consulting  from Rzeszow highlighted that technical indicators cannot be evaluated as other parameters (economic, environmental). Threshold values defined by international standards and road authority requirements must be reached. In the opinion of Promost, giving extra points for exceeding those values would not have any sense. Other partners agreed with this statement. All participants were worried about the possibility of implementation the certification into Polish reality. In Poland, the only parameter for road contract tenders was total price for years and this was pointed out by one of the Promost Consulting team participants. It is clear that the financial crisis in Europe will not change this situation.

All participants were interested in the project results and the general idea of the certificate of sustainability for roads. The participants were familiar with the idea of sustainability certificates for buildings (as BREEAM and LEED), but they were not conscious that similar tools and methodologies exist for road infrastructure (Greenroads, DuboCalc ect.). For more information, contact napeecolabel@nape.pl.