Passive Purple Achieves the French A+ Indoor-Air Rating
When you specify a membrane that gets painted or sprayed across large internal surfaces, indoor air quality matters. Passive Purple has been independently tested and awarded the French A+ rating — the cleanest band in France's mandatory emissions labelling scheme. Here's what that means for your project, and why it gives UK and international specifiers a recognised European IAQ credential to rely on.
What is the French A+ label? 🛡️
France operates a mandatory VOC emissions labelling system for construction and decoration products, introduced under the Arrêté du 19 April 2011 and its related decrees. Any product applied indoors — paints, coatings, membranes, flooring and similar — must carry a label showing how much it emits into the air people breathe.
Products are placed into one of four bands based on their emissions measured in a controlled test chamber after 28 days:
- A+ — très faibles émissions (very low emissions), the best and cleanest band
- A — low emissions
- B — medium emissions
- C — the highest emissions band
The classification looks at the 28-day chamber emissions of formaldehyde, total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) and a range of individual VOCs. To reach A+, a product must sit below strict thresholds — including formaldehyde below 10 µg/m³ and TVOC below 1000 µg/m³. A+ represents the lowest emissions a construction product can achieve under the scheme.
Passive Purple's A+ result
Passive Purple was tested to EN 16516 and assessed against the French VOC emissions regulations. It achieved Class A+ — "très faibles émissions", confirming it as one of the cleanest liquid-applied products you can put inside a building.
The testing was carried out by Normec Product Testing in Belgium, an ISO/IEC 17025 accredited laboratory, under reference SPT2023-R012. The certification covers Passive Purple, Airtight White and the brush grades. Because Airtight White is the same formulation as Passive Purple — simply white-pigmented — the A+ result applies equally to it.
Why the A+ rating matters ☀️
Airtightness membranes are applied across walls, ceilings and junctions, often over large areas and frequently in spaces that will be occupied soon after. What a coating emits into the air is a genuine consideration, not a technicality.
Passive Purple is water-based with no organic solvents. That formulation is the foundation of its low-emission performance, and the A+ rating puts an independent, third-party stamp on it. For specifiers, that translates into several practical advantages:
- Healthy indoor air — very low VOC and formaldehyde emissions support better air quality for occupants over the building's life
- Safe in sensitive settings — a low-emission, water-based product is well suited to schools, healthcare buildings, homes and other spaces where air quality is a priority
- Occupied-space friendly — low emissions make it more comfortable to apply where people are working or living nearby
- A recognised European credential — UK specifiers can point to the A+ label as an established, well-understood IAQ benchmark, even outside France
Fitting A+ into your specification
The French A+ label is widely understood across European projects and increasingly referenced in healthy-building conversations. Because it is backed by chamber testing to EN 16516 and issued by an accredited laboratory, it gives your specification a defensible, evidence-based line on indoor air emissions — the kind of transparent, third-party data that architects and clients increasingly expect.
Combined with Passive Purple's airtightness and vapour-control performance, the A+ rating means you don't have to trade a healthy internal environment for a high-performing membrane. You get both from a single water-based product.
Confidence you can specify
The A+ rating is one part of a broad body of independent testing behind Passive Purple. If indoor air quality is on your project's agenda — and on most it now is — this is a credential worth writing into your specification.
Explore the full evidence base and see how Passive Purple performs against airtightness, vapour, fire and emissions standards. See all Passive Purple test data & certifications, or view the product and technical details for Passive Purple.