The manufacturer shall draw up a Declaration of Performance when a product covered by a harmonized European standard (hEN) or a European Technical Assessment (ETA) is placed on the market. The Declaration of Performance (DoP) is the key concept in the Construction Products Regulation (CPR). It serves to deliver the information about the essential characteristics of the product that a manufacturer wants to make available on the market (EU, 2013). In order to ensure that the declaration of performance (DoP) for specific products is accurate and reliable, a system of Assessment and Verification of Constancy of Performance (AVCP) for each family of construction product is applied (CPA et al., 2012).

One of the new key issues of the CPR is the requirement on sustainability, especially the sustainable use of natural resources, which are the basic requirements for construction works 7 (BRCW 7) and the reduction of life-cycle impacts of greenhouse gases (BRCW 3). Both requirements define relevant product-specific information involving the life cycle approach. Therefore, it is necessary to use the European standards, under development by CEN technical committee (CEN/TC 350), to regulate in these areas of sustainability.

On the other hand, the CPR introduces the life cycle perspective when assessing the performance of a construction product because construction products can have an environmental impact from the extraction of raw materials through processing and manufacture, maintenance, use of the product or at the end of its life. Life cycle assessment, or LCA, is a methodology that measures the environmental impact of a construction product, component or building. The particular type of LCA known as an environmental product declaration (EPD) has been developed to provide environmental information from LCA studies in a common format, based on common rules, known as product category rules (PCR). PCR have been developed in different European countries. To be comparable, the EPD must have the same PCR to ensure that scope, methodology, data quality and indicators are all the same. All construction EPD Programs should comply with the International Standards for Life Cycle Assessment and the overarching standard for Environmental Product Declaration (CPA et al., 2012). The core PCR EN 15,804 describes the rules regarding how to develop an EPD for construction products in a common way.

Currently, there are some commercial initiatives that aim to develop ceramic products containing waste as secondary resources. Among them, the Green Leaf Bricks from recycled materials such as sewage wastes, recycled iron oxides, recycled glass, mineral tailings (Green Leaf Bricks, 2014), and other virgin ceramic scrap or ‘EcoBrick’ that contains sewage sludge, mainly (Life Project, 2008). A life cycle analysis and the performances have been published in their environmental product declarations. Other certificates that can be applied for these products are the SMaRT© Sustainable Product Standard and the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEEDs credits).

On the other hand, it is remarkable to review the use of alternative, recycled and secondary sources (MARSS) 2005–2010 in the brick manufacturing sector performed by the company CERAM and requested by the Brick Manufacturing Association (BDA) (Smith, 2010).