Showcasing product carbon data is key for construction product manufacturers who need to differentiate, get specified, and win more business.
Buildings are responsible for 39% of global carbon emissions, and 11% of that comes from materials and construction. There is a fast-growing need for carbon transparency in construction products, but also a lack of progress due to limited awareness, lack of understanding, and lack of trust in EPD reliability.
Read this article from Verity Moorhouse, EPD Team Lead, One Click LCA to understand what EPDs are, how to use them, and why they’re soon going to be essential for manufacturers.
What is an EPD?
An environmental product declaration, or EPD, is a document that transparently communicates the environmental performance or impact of any product or material over its lifetime.
In the construction industry, EPDs are product life-cycle assessments (LCAs) that support carbon emission reduction by making it possible to compare the impacts of different materials and products in order to select the most sustainable option.
An EPD is usually valid for five years, and is generated according to relevant standards. Construction EPDs are based on the ISO 14040/14044, ISO 14025, EN 15804 or ISO 21930 standards.
EPDs help to achieve EPD and LCA credits in certification schemes, like LEED, BREEAM, and others.
Why should you care about them?
The lack of national regulation and policy aimed at construction product sustainability has been a limiting factor in the adoption of EPDs to date, manufacturers nonetheless face pressure to understand and showcase the embodied carbon of their materials, from clients who want to make future-proofed buying decisions.
Architects, engineers, and designers want to be able to choose the most sustainable option for their project. With EPDs, specifiers and buyers are able to compare the impact of the same products or materials, enabling them to make informed decisions about the products they will choose.
Product carbon transparency is more than a ‘nice to have’ nod to sustainability. In the near future it will have a significant impact on the potential bottom line of the business.
What are the business benefits of EPDs?
There are a number of benefits to creating or using EPDs including:
- Increased demand and revenue: Creating and publishing EPDs enables you to differentiate your product or your project from competitors, increase the likelihood of winning contracts and protecting repeat business. Specifiers making decisions about products are increasingly basing decisions on EPD data and carbon transparency.
- Regulation and legal requirements: Public procurement bodies in the EU and EEA are required to use EPDs to assess the environmental footprint of products and Belgium requires the use of EPDs if a company is performing any environmental-related marketing. The UK has several policies being updated to recommend the use of EPDs.
- Credits and certification: LCA credits are a very cost-efficient and easy compared to other credits’ requirements for your building’s certifications — and EPDs are also recognised by LEED and BREEAM, among other market-based systems.
What does the EPD creation process look like?
Step 1 — Collect data for the raw material, resource consumption, and waste data for your product. Your choice of program operator and Product Category Rule (PCR) will determine the specific data you will need to collect, based on the stages of your product life-cycle and which impact categories your LCA assesses.
Step 2 — Conduct a life-cycle assessment: the LCA will need to conform to the PCR.
Step 3 — Prepare background report for EPD: the background report is a vital accompaniment to your public EPD. It provides further details about the LCA methodology, assumptions and approach employed to support third-party verification, as well as the standards that you have adhered to.
Step 4 — 3rd party verification: every EPD needs to be verified by an independent third-party verifier before it can be published. This ensures accuracy, reliability and ensures that the EPD conforms to the requirements of the relevant PCR.
Step 5 — Publication: Once your EPD has been verified by an independent third party, it is ready for the public domain via publication. To do this, you need to submit the EPD document for publication to the program operator, who will process, register and publish your EPD. If you use the One Click LCA Pre-verified EPD Generator, we handle this process for you.
Watch how One Click LCA customers are using EPDs
- Case study: Air-con manufacturer Daikin increases visibility of product carbon footprint
- Case study: How Hydrotec completed 29 EPDs in two months with One Click LCA’s EPD Generator
How can One Click LCA help?
One Click LCA enables manufacturers across the globe to measure and publish their product’s carbon footprint. The EPD Generator tools enable users to create and scale environmental product declarations (EPDs) for all product categories.
To book a consultation or demo of our EPD Generator tools, click here.
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