Peace of mind for users
The European Coil Coatings Association has launched a label for prepainted metal
In recent years, the European Coil Coatings market has been faced with the problem of low quality material entering the markt. Last year, the European Coil Coatings Association has launched the ECCA Premium Sustainability label. This scheme aims to ensure quality and sustainability by granting the label to manufacturers who have successfully passed inspections.
At the end of 2014, after careful consideration and lively internal debates, the European Coil Coating Association (ECCA) launched a prestigious labelling scheme (ECCA Premium) which assures users of prepainted metal they are getting quality and sustainable prepainted metal products. Since several years, the European coil coating market faces an increasing challenge because of low quality materials entering the market, not fulfilling the requirements of European and national quality and sustainability standards. Because there are no means to visually determine the quality of a coil coated material, these low quality materials have gained market share, put pressure on prices and created the risk of giving a bad image to all coil coated products.
In addition, all actors on the market are not constrained by European legislation and, for example, prepainted metals imported into EU-28 can contain Substances of Very High Concern that, under the REACH chemical regulation, will be subject to authorisation in Europe in the coming months.
Ensuring European and inter-national quality standards
The ECCA Premium Quality and Sustainability label represents value and peace of mind for users of prepainted aluminium and steel products by assuring defined colour durability, optimum corrosion resistance and suitability for creative design applications. The scheme also guarantees that the metal used is manufactured in a safe and environmentally responsible way. The label can be granted for prepainted metal products designed for outdoor applications. Prepainted indoor products fulfilling the requirements can also be granted a label, but postpainted materials are not included in this scheme. The requirements are divided in four categories: product quality, product sustainability, manufacturing quality and manufacturing sustainability. The main idea of the label is to ensure that the requirements and principles of the existing European product and test standards (EN 1396, EN 10169 and EN 13523 series) are met. Therefore, the whole referential is based on well-known European and international standards, only in some cases defining additional performance requirements. For licensed prepainted metal producers, the ECCA Premium
label offers a distinctive and competitive advantageover their competitors. It is granted only to coilcoaters who have successfully passed inspections performedby duly certified, independent auditing bodiesand demonstrates manufacturers’ dedication to qualityand sustainability.
Not restricted to only European coil coaters
ECCA Premium can be granted to any coil coater whose production line and product fulfill the requirements. It is not limited to European coil coaters or to ECCA members and the scheme ensures that the criteria and procedures for granting the label are fair and harmonised in each country. The first four companies to which ECCA has granted its label are Hydro Aluminium Rolled Products (Norway), Novelis Bresso (Italia), Arcelor Mittal Liège (Belgium) and Miralu (France) but more are set to follow soon. Detailed information about the specifications, the application
procedure, a list of labelled products and manufacturers and the list of inspectors is available at www.eccapremium.com.
Source: European Coatings Journal
www.european-coatings.com
