New regulation on 1 May 2023: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for construction products and materials in the building sector (PMCB)

* Responsabilité Elargie des Producteurs (REP) pour les produits et matériaux de construction du secteur du bâtiment (PMCB).

The law of 10 February 2020 on the fight against waste and the circular economy (AGEC) has set up a new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) channel for construction products and materials from the building sector (PMCB).

The entry into force of this new legislation, from 1 May 2023, requires companies that make construction products and materials for the building sector (PMCB) available on the French market, known as "distributor on the market" (or “metteur sur le marché”), to pay an eco-contribution to contribute to waste recovery.

The companies concerned are

• Producers who manufacture and market building products and materials (BPCM) under their own brand.
• Importers of building products and materials on the French market.
• distributors or retailers who market products under their own brand name.

NB: There should be only one contributor in the whole chain of the product concerned: The manufacturer, importer or distributor.

The products concerned are divided into 2 categories:

• Inert: construction products and materials made up mainly of minerals that do not contain glass, mineral wool or gypsum (concrete, lime, stone, baked or raw earth, slate, bituminous materials, aggregates, ceramics, etc.)
• Non-inert: other products and materials from the following families: metal, wood, mortars, plasters, paints, varnishes, joinery with glass, glass walls and related construction products, plaster, plastic, bituminous membranes, glass wool, rock wool, other bio-sourced materials (vegetable or animal origin) and other materials not mentioned.

The products concerned are finished products and not raw materials.

Products for the public works sector are not affected by this regulation.

Four eco-organisations have been approved by the French government for the management of construction waste:

- Ecomaison (non-inert waste) https://ecomaison.com

- Ecominero (inert waste) https://www.ecominero.fr

- Valdelia (non-inert waste) https://www.valdelia.org

- Valobat (inert and non-inert waste) https://www.valobat.fr

If you are concerned, you will have to join an eco-organisation of your choice.

Membership of an eco-organisation will be mandatory from 1 May 2023.

You will be able to do so free of charge online on the website of the chosen eco-organisation, which will send you a unique identification number (IDU) issued by ADEME (Agence de l'environnement et de la maîtrise de l'énergie), which will be used to facilitate the traceability of the products concerned (PMCB).

The amount of the eco-contribution will be determined by a scale set by each eco-organisation. It will vary according to the cost of processing the waste.

You will then have to pass on the eco-contribution in your sales prices, and include it in your general sales conditions and on your invoices, for all products and construction materials from the building sector (PMCB) placed on the French market and invoiced from 1 May 2023

For your quotations, it will not be compulsory to display this eco-contribution.

As a foreign company, you are not obliged to join an eco-organisation if you do not invoice from an entity located in France (branch office).

However, you can join voluntarily to relieve your French customers of this responsibility.

If you are considered as a "distributor on the market", you will have to make a monthly declaration for the products concerned and placed on the market from 1 May.

This step is crucial as it will enable each eco-organisation to calculate the amount of your eco-contribution for the recycling or recovery of PMCB.

The declaration procedures will be simplified (annual flat rate or percentage of the company's turnover) for companies with a total annual turnover < 2 M€.

The declaration for month M must be made between the 1st and the 10th of month M+1. The eco-organisation will invoice on the 30th of month M+1 and payment must be made on the 30th of month M+2.

To declare the products, it will be necessary to extract the volumes sold by product code subject to the eco-contribution for all sales intended for the building industry.

Each product family will be listed by a product code, specific to each eco-organisation, which can be incremented in the company's internal tool, either manually or automatically by associating the code with the product concerned.

The eco-contribution is a component of the sales price and as such is subject to VAT. It is passed on to the customer in the same way, so there is no financial impact for the manufacturer, who pays the eco-organisation the eco-participation it has collected.

The eco participation must be mentioned in the body of the invoice for each product.

The public authorities recommend that the unit amount of the product's eco-contribution, excluding VAT, be shown on a separate line of the invoice for each product concerned, and not globally at the foot of the invoice.

Invoicing software and, where applicable, quotation software, should make it possible to pass on and display the eco contribution for each PMCB placed on the market.

As this regulation is new and requires changes or the implementation of new internal processes or IT developments in order to modify the invoicing system in particular, the eco-organisations may also support their members in these steps.