Your design did not get worse. The method changed. On 1 July 2026 a revised Bepalingsmethode Milieuprestatie Bouwwerken (BPM 2.0) took effect alongside tightened MPG requirements. The same building, with the same products, can now return a different environmental performance score than it did in June.
Two separate things happened on the same date, and conflating them causes most of the confusion.
Change one: the method moved to EN 15804+A2
BPM 2.0 aligns the Dutch determination method with the current European standard, EN 15804+A2, replacing the earlier +A1 basis.
The core calculation rules are largely unchanged. What changed is the breadth of what gets counted: environmental impact categories expanded from 11 to 19.
That expansion is why scores moved. A product whose impacts fell mainly in the original eleven categories may look similar. A product with significant impacts in the eight newly included categories now carries those impacts in its score for the first time. Nothing about the product changed. The measurement got wider.
This also means +A1 and +A2 figures are not comparable. A score calculated under the old method and one calculated under BPM 2.0 are different measurements, and presenting a change between them as an improvement or a deterioration is misleading.
Change two: the requirements tightened, unevenly
The MPG requirement itself was revised, and it did not move in one direction for everyone.
Offices: 15% tighter. The largest tightening, applied to a building type where the sector was judged able to absorb it.
Utility buildings: a requirement for the first time. Schools, shops, healthcare facilities and industrial halls now carry an MPG requirement where previously they had none. For these building types this is not a tightening but a new obligation, and it is the change most likely to be missed by teams who have never run an MPG calculation.
Regular homes: unchanged. Requirements were deliberately not tightened for standard housing, to avoid worsening delays in residential construction.
Small homes and some offices: a more lenient requirement. Buildings that struggle to meet the standard requirement because of their built form get a relaxed threshold.
Mixed-use buildings are assessed on a weighted requirement combining the different use functions by formula.
What this means if you make building products
If you supply products into Dutch construction, three consequences follow.
Your EPD may need recalculating. An EPD calculated under EN 15804+A1 does not produce the 19 categories BPM 2.0 works from. Data in the Nationale Milieudatabase has to be on the current basis to be usable in an MPG calculation under the new method.
Your relative position may have moved. Because the expansion to 19 categories affects products unevenly, your standing against competing products can shift without either product changing. A product that scored well against a narrow set of impacts may score differently across a wider set, and the reverse is equally true. This is worth checking rather than assuming.
Specifiers are recalculating now. The tightened office requirement and the new utility requirement mean design teams are rerunning calculations on projects that previously passed comfortably. Products that push a project over its threshold get substituted. Products that help it clear the threshold get specified.
That is a commercial opening for any manufacturer whose data is current, and a commercial risk for any whose data is not.
What to check
Is your EPD on EN 15804+A2? If it was produced against +A1 and has not been updated, it is on the wrong basis for BPM 2.0.
Is it registered and current in the NMD? Data outside the Nationale Milieudatabase does not participate in Dutch MPG calculations, whatever its quality.
Do you know your new relative position? Not your absolute score, but where you sit against the alternatives specifiers are comparing you to under the wider category set.
Have you told your specifiers? Design teams recalculating projects right now are making substitution decisions. A manufacturer who proactively supplies current data gets considered. One who waits for the phone to ring often finds the specification already changed.
Do not read a score change as a performance change
The most common error we see is treating the difference between an +A1 score and a BPM 2.0 score as a result. It is not. It is a change of instrument.
If you want to know whether your product actually improved, you need both years calculated on the same method. That is also what any environmental claim about improvement now requires, since claims of reduction must rest on a consistent baseline to be defensible.
How we help
EPD work. Producing or updating an EPD to EN 15804+A2 and getting it registered in the NMD.
MKI and MPG calculations. Environmental cost indicator work for products and projects under the current determination method.
LCA. The underlying life cycle assessment where no current data exists, or where the product has changed materially since the last one.
Critical review. Independent critical review where the LCA needs to withstand external scrutiny.
Construction sector work. Our sustainable construction practice covers the specifier-facing side, including how product data lands in project calculations.
The timing argument
Requirements took effect on 1 July 2026, but the practical deadline is set by permit applications. Every project entering the permit process now runs on the new method, and every one of those is a specification decision.
Manufacturers whose data is current are in those calculations. Manufacturers whose data is not are being designed out, quietly, without a conversation.
Sources: Nationale Milieudatabase, Informatiepunt Leefomgeving, Besluit bouwwerken leefomgeving, EN 15804+A2.
