European approach to assess the fire performance of façades

Several attempts have been made in the past to develop a European harmonized testing and assessment method for facades before the European commission decided to publish a call for tender on the topic. A project consortium from five countries (Sweden, UK, France, Germany and Hungary) applied to the call for tender and was contracted to develop a European approach to assess the fire performance of facades. 24 sub-contractors and 14 stakeholder entities were part of the project. The objective of the European project was to address a request from the Standing Committee of Construction (SCC) to provide EC Member States regulators with a means to regulate the fire performance of facade systems based on a European approach agreed by SCC. In addressing this objective, the project team was asked to consider a number of issues which are presented and discussed.