Jurriaan van Stigt
"What is your MPG* score?" the alderman asks enthusiastically. I reply, "0.67." He nods as if he understands what that means. Spoiler: he doesn't. I don't really either.
In recent years, we've been doing something dangerous at LEVS: we actually started calculating. Not in MPG points, but in kilograms of CO₂. It turned out that our project with a neat MPG score was not as Paris Proof as we thought. It felt like discovering that you've been measuring your entire life in bananas.
The problem with MPG is that it is a secret language. An Esperanto for builders that no one speaks. Meanwhile, France simply works with 530 kilograms of CO₂ per square meter. You understand that immediately. Just like in Mali, where the mason builds his house without a points system but with a sense of material. Simplicity works.
And then there's that NMD (Dutch Environmental Database) straitjacket. A German manufacturer with a perfect EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) has to redo everything for the Netherlands with ecoinvent 3.6. Why? Because we always want it just a little bit different. It's like having to invent a different kind of brick for Belgium.
Here is the proposal: eliminate the MPG and NMD as a basis, go for kilograms of CO₂. Accept international EPDs. Create a twelve-year plan like France: for example, 550 kg for apartments in 2026, gradually stepping down in increments of 3 years to, for example, 300 kg in 2037. Clear, measurable, understandable. Also for politics, aldermen, and construction.
The construction sector can save tens of millions on double EPD administration. We align with Europe instead of building our own little island. And we achieve 1 to 2 megatons of CO₂ reduction. Not by becoming more complicated, but by finally being understandable.
The perfect sustainable building does not exist. But an understandable system would already be a significant improvement. And now with a new cabinet, I think this is the right moment. Because to quote Jetten: "It is possible."
* The MPG is a specific Dutch tool within Dutch building regulations. It involves calculating the environmental impact of building materials across their entire life cycle — a concept also referred to in English as ‘embodied carbon’ or the ‘life-cycle environmental impact of materials’.