Most conversations about building materials’ environmental performance stop at carbon. Carbon is measurable, comparable, and increasingly priced, so it earns attention. But our life cycle work has produced a second set of results that we find just as compelling, and that speak more directly to the people who will spend their working lives inside the buildings our panels go into.
What toxicity indicators measure
EN 15804:2012+A2:2019 asks for three toxicity indicators alongside the familiar carbon figures: human toxicity with cancer effects, human toxicity with non-cancer effects, and freshwater ecotoxicity. All three are calculated using USEtox, the scientific consensus model developed under the UNEP and SETAC Life Cycle Initiative and now the recommended method for characterizing toxicity in life cycle assessment.
USEtox works in three steps. It models where a released substance goes in the environment, how people and ecosystems are exposed to it, and what harm follows from that exposure. The output is a characterization factor, and the results are reported in comparative toxic units rather than kilograms. It is a rigorous, peer-reviewed method, and it is deliberately hard to flatter.
Why the results run in ECOR’s favor
The published literature is clear about where toxicity comes from in conventional panel manufacturing. Life cycle studies of medium-density panels identify two dominant hotspots: the thermal energy used in pressing, and the production of the urea-formaldehyde resin that holds the board together. Work assessing urea-formaldehyde adhesives under USEtox attributes toxicity impacts to free formaldehyde emissions to air and water and to nitrogen oxide emissions from urea production, with human toxicity impacts continuing into the use phase rather than ending at the factory gate.
ECOR panels do not have that hotspot, because they do not have that resin. Our fibers are bound by heat, pressure, and water, which soften and cross-link the lignin already present in the material. This is a well-characterized mechanism in the literature on binderless boards, where reviews in Wood Science and Technology and BioResources describe lignin softening and covalent cross-linking during hot pressing as a substitute for synthetic adhesive rather than a reduction of it. Remove the resin, and you remove the emissions pathway that the toxicity models are tracking.
The effect is shown in our declaration. Across the end-of-life recovery stage, ECOR 1 returns net credits on every toxicity indicator: approximately −2.3 × 10⁻⁷ comparative toxic units for non-cancer human toxicity, −5.6 × 10⁻⁹ for cancer effects, and −56 comparative toxic units for freshwater ecotoxicity, alongside a soil quality credit. In plain terms, recovering and reprocessing an ECOR panel displaces production that would otherwise have carried those burdens. Net negative results on toxicity indicators are uncommon for construction materials, and they are the direct consequence of a product made without synthetic binder from a feedstock that was already a residue.
The feedstock story runs in the same direction
There is a second health dimension upstream of the factory. Cereal straw that is not collected is frequently burned in the field, and the consequences of such are well documented. Peer-reviewed assessments of straw burning report substantial increases in fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds during burning seasons, with measured effects on respiratory and cardiovascular health in surrounding populations. Studies of burning bans in China have quantified the improvement in air quality and health outcomes when that practice stops.
Every ton of straw that becomes a panel is a ton that does not go up a field. That benefit sits outside the boundaries of a product declaration, but it is real, and it is worth naming.
Why this lands now
Healthy building standards have moved from aspiration to specification. WELL v2 and LEED v4.1 both set material health and low-emitting material criteria, and the toxicity indicators in an EN 15804 declaration give specifiers something more substantive than a compliance checkbox: a modeled account of what a material does to human and ecological health across its life. As material health databases and ingredient transparency requirements expand, products that perform well on these indicators will be easier to specify, not the other way around.
We published these results for the same reason we published the carbon figures. They were measured under a recognized method by an independent assessor, and we make the results available to anyone looking to examine further.
Sources
ECOR Global d.o.o. Environmental Product Declaration in accordance with EN 15804:2012+A2:2019 and ISO 14025, covering ECOR 1, ECOR HB, ECOR FLR, and ECOR PLY panels. LCA by e Odraz d.o.o., Belgrade. Reference year 2025.
ECOR Global d.o.o. Gate-to-Gate Analysis Supporting EPD, ECOR 1 and ECOR PLY 6 mm, Serbia facility. Reference year 2025.
Rosenbaum, R.K., Bachmann, T.M., Gold, L.S., et al. “USEtox — The UNEP-SETAC Toxicity Model: Recommended Characterisation Factors for Human Toxicity and Freshwater Ecotoxicity in Life Cycle Impact Assessment.” International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 13 (2008): 532–546.
Fantke, P., et al. USEtox 2.0 Documentation, Version 1.1. UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative.
EN 15804:2012+A2:2019. Sustainability of Construction Works — Environmental Product Declarations — Core Rules for the Product Category of Construction Products. European Committee for Standardization.
Silva, D.A.L., et al. “Life Cycle Assessment of Medium Density Particleboard (MDP) Produced in Brazil.” International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment; and “Urea Formaldehyde Resin: Impacts on the Productive Life Cycle of Wood Based Panels.”
Ghani, A., and Bawa, S.M. “Life Cycle Assessment of Urea-Formaldehyde Adhesive and Phenol-Formaldehyde Adhesives.” Environmental Processes 7 (2020): 1023–1039.
“Life Cycle Assessment of Urea Formaldehyde Resin: Comparison by CML (2001), EDIP (1997) and USEtox (2008) Methods for Toxicological Impact Categories.” Springer, Progress in Life Cycle Assessment.
Pintiaux, T., Viet, D., Vandenbossche, V., et al. “A Review of Natural Fibers and Processing Operations for the Production of Binderless Boards.” BioResources 10, no. 1 (2015).
Zhang, D., Zhang, A., and Xue, L. “A Review of Preparation of Binderless Fiberboards and Its Self-Bonding Mechanism.” Wood Science and Technology 49 (2015): 661–679.
“Approaching a New Generation of Fiberboards Taking Advantage of Self Lignin as Green Adhesive.” International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (2018).
Chen, J., Li, C., Ristovski, Z., et al. “A Review of Biomass Burning: Emissions and Impacts on Air Quality, Health and Climate in China.” Science of the Total Environment.
“Assessment of the Effects of Straw Burning Bans in China: Emissions, Air Quality, and Health Impacts.” Science of the Total Environment (2021). PubMed ID 34049144.
“Agricultural Production and Air Pollution: An Investigation on Crop Straw Fires.” PLOS ONE 19, no. 5 (2024): e0303830.
“Characterization of Particulate Matter Emission from Open Burning of Rice Straw.” Atmospheric Environment.
International WELL Building Institute. WELL v2 Materials Concept. US Green Building Council. LEED v4.1 BD+C, Materials and Resources and Indoor Environmental Quality credits.