Today the ICC Evaluation Service (ICC-ES) and the Construction Technologies Institute of the Italian National Research Council (ITC-CNR) signed a historic memorandum of understanding at the University of Miami’s Robert and Judi Prokop Newman Alumni Center. This agreement will help streamline evaluation processes for manufacturers in the U.S. and Italy, save time and money, reduce barriers to trade, and improve market access for safe and compliant building materials.

ICC-ES and ITC-CNR have collaborated in the past as peer companies providing product evaluation reports for construction products to relevant codes and standards, sharing information about their conformity assessment work in America and Europe, respectively. The new agreement formalizes this collaboration and enables the companies to create harmonized pre-standards that will help industry clients to show proof of compliance to such standards in America and Europe – an achievement that aligns with the efforts of the U.S. government to reduce or eliminate technical barriers to trade.

“The International Code Council is honored to be a part of this important agreement,” said Code Council Chief Executive Officer Dominic Sims, CBO. “Our family of companies are global leaders in the building safety industry, and our mission transcends borders. We look forward to continuing to deepen our relationship with our Italian partners as we work to increase building safety around the world.”

“Through this effort, manufacturers exporting building products to the U.S. and Italy can use the Memorandum of Understanding as a tool to conduct a ‘one-stop-shop’ product evaluation,” said ICC-ES President Shahin Moinian, P.E. “This agreement will reduce efforts and costs for manufacturers, and it builds confidence that the evaluated products meet the requirements of both countries.”

The Miami signing event included representatives from the Italian government, the University of Miami, the International Code Council and ITC-CNR, including University of Miami President Julio Frenk and the Consul General from the Italian Consulate in Miami, the Honorable Cristiano Musillo. The University of Miami College of Engineering’s Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, which tests some ICC-ES products for building code compliance, hosted the signing event.