The authority responsible for sports infrastructure in the Netherlands has developed a labelling system to easily identify sustainable synthetic turf products. It follows the PEFCR concept however, for the time being, it will be unique in Europe. What will be their approach?

With the adoption of the Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) for synthetic turf by the European Commission, the sector now has a single tool to identify the environmental footprint of a synthetic turf product. Thanks to the introduction of an online tool by the EMEA Synthetic Turf Council (ESTC), it can be used by stakeholders in Europe as well as beyond. The PEFCR offer the advantage of using a single and widely accepted calculation method as a replacement for a variety of different methods used in individual countries, governing bodies or even companies. In short, the PEFCR saves time, money and resources, as producers will no longer have to invest in producing new tailormade datasets for each and every country, and users will no longer have to establish which method is relevant or superior.

Based on the PEFCR, a project team has now developed a sustainability label to simplify the identification of sustainable products. The team is comprised of the Dutch National Olympic Committee (NOC*NSF), being the custodian of sports infrastructure in the Netherlands the Netherlands National Enterprise Agency (RVO), a governmental body that assists entrepreneurs; NGOs; knowledge institutes; policymakers and organisations in, for example becoming more sustainable; the Knowledge Centre for Sport & Physical Activity as well as representatives of various companies in the synthetic turf sector