What extra applies to steel used in construction?

What you must concretely do

What is expected of you

Steel used in construction, in practice, is subject to two regulations that exist alongside each other. Regulation (EU) 2024/3110 concerns construction products and regulates the conditions under which a product such as a beam, plate or profile is placed on the market and which performance declaration belongs to it. Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, the ESPR, regulates the digital product passport and requirements concerning sustainability and information about the product itself, independent of the application in which it is used. For a company that trades or processes steel for construction, this means that both frameworks can be relevant at the same time, and that calls for clarity about who regulates which part.

Determining construction product status

The premise is that steel intended to be permanently incorporated into a building falls within the scope of Regulation (EU) 2024/3110. This affects the performance declaration and CE marking for the construction product, separate from the product passport. For a steel trader or construction company with 10 to 100 employees, this means in practice that two files per product can be created: one with the construction product technical data, one with the data for the digital passport according to the ESPR. If a company manages these two files separately, it runs the risk that data become inconsistent as soon as a specification changes.

Determining origin and role in the supply chain

Article 1 of the ESPR determines the subject matter and scope of the regulation, and it follows from this that obligations differ depending on the role a company has in the supply chain. A steel trader who purchases profiles from a European manufacturer is in a different position than an importer who sources directly from outside the EU. Anyone in doubt about this can verify their own position against the question am I importer or manufacturer according to the ESPR? For companies that resell steel without processing it themselves, the question What obligations does a distributor or dealer of steel have? is relevant, because a trader generally has a different responsibility than a manufacturer.

Providing data that correspond to the construction application

For steel applied in construction, extra weight rests on the question of whether the data in the passport correspond to what is stated in the performance declaration of the construction product. A discrepancy between the two documents is for an end user — for example, a contractor who processes the steel — a signal that something is not right in the supply chain. For companies that place steel on the market under their own brand name, additional considerations apply here; the page I sell steel under my own brand — what obligations do I incur? goes further into this.

Maintaining traceability through the supply chain

Construction steel often passes through several hands: producer, trader, processor, contractor. At each handover, the link between the physical product and the associated data must remain intact, so that the QR data carrier on the construction site still points to the correct information. For companies working with suppliers outside the EU, this is a recurring issue; see my manufacturer is located outside the European Union — who regulates the product passport then?

Where things go wrong in practice

A number of situations recur regularly in the construction steel supply chain:

• A trader assumes that the CE marking of the construction product also covers the digital product passport, and only discovers during an inspection that these are two separate obligations.
• Steel is cut or processed before it reaches the construction site, with the party carrying out the processing not recording whether the original product data still apply to the processed piece.
• An importer of steel profiles from outside the EU provides a performance declaration, but has no visibility into who must compile the data for the product passport.
• When consignments of steel are merged on the construction site — different batches of steel that together form one building component — the link between the physical product and the digital passport becomes unclear.
• A construction company sells leftover steel from a project to another party, without anyone having recorded who is responsible at that point for the accuracy of the data.

What you can document

For companies that trade or process steel for construction, it is practical to put the following points in writing:

• Who in the organisation is responsible for the building product file (performance declaration) and who is responsible for the digital product passport, including a standing agreement on how these two align — see also who is responsible for the product passport for steel?
• An overview per product line of the role that your own company takes on: manufacturer, importer, distributor or brand owner.
• Agreements with suppliers on the timing of passport data delivery, and what happens if a batch of steel is processed or combined before it reaches the construction site.
• A documented procedure for what happens if data in the passport do not match the performance declaration of the building product, including who is held accountable — relevant in light of the question who is liable if incorrect data are in the product passport?
• A decision on whether compiling and managing passport data is handled internally or outsourced, depending in part on the size of the product range — see do I need extra staff for the product passport or can I outsource it?

These points do not establish a legal obligation that does not already follow from the regulations, but they ensure that within the organisation it is clear who manages which part of the file — something that in a chain with multiple links, as is often the case with structural steel, is easily overlooked.