EPDs - Trusting the Data
With carbon targets playing an increasingly important role in the construction sector, demand for Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) for products is growing significantly. EPDs inform stakeholders about a products environmental and human health impact throughout its life cycle and can be used to achieve sustainability accreditations such as BREEAM and LEED.
Written by
Joe Clough
Graduate Sustainability Consultant
To contact please email:
joe.clough@mainer.co.uk
What is an EPD?
An EPD Is a verified document that reports and demonstrates a products environmental impact. The document is generated using environmental data obtained through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which is then third party verified.
The LCA is performed in line with EN1508 (the European Standard for the generation of EPD for construction products) and produces 7 impact indicators for a product:
Why produce an EPD?
Life-cycle carbon limits for new buildings will soon be mandatory throughout the world. For clients (developers, designers, specifiers or builders) this means that they will need to calculate the lifecycle impact of every element of their project via a building LCA. As a result, they are likely to prioritise product suppliers who can transparently document the environmental impact of their materials through credible means such as an EPD.
EPDs can help clients gain accreditations for green building certifications and schemes. Approximately 80% of European green building standards and regulations now use EPDs to gain credits or score in their assessments, such as LEED and BREEAM. For many of these schemes, the use of products that have an EPD is enough to gain the credits, there is no carbon performance target for the products themselves.
EPDs can demonstrate that a company has commitments to sustainability which can be used as a marketing tool to gain sales. Investing in an EPD makes it clear to clients that you are committed to sustainability, and to measuring and reporting your impact. For many clients and investors, your carbon footprint, or Global Warming Potential (GWP) will be the main information they are looking for, so should be clearly presented.
Source: www.oneclicklca.com/epd-hub/
How can we trust the data?
Third-party verification is a key factor in why EPDs are valued and trusted for their impartial and comparable information. Without third-party verification, EPDs cannot be recognised by many certification schemes and buyers. At Mainer Associates we use One Click LCA software to conduct our LCA’s which is a software verified by the BRE and supports all BREEAM schemes.
In the UK, EPDs can be certified according to the British Standard BS EN 15804, which sets out the requirements for the development and verification of EPDs. EPDs certified under this standard are verified by independent third-party certification bodies that are accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). This service is responsible for ensuring that certification bodies meet the applicable international standards for quality management.
Due to third party verification, EPDs can inform many aspects of sustainability at a product and building level as well as influencing many aspects of the entire supply and value chain.
Source: www.oneclicklca.com/epd-hub/
How do EPDs help our work at Mainer Associates?
BREEAM
EPDS can be used to increase a projects BREEAM score in 2 different ways:
Mat 01 Building Life Cycle Assessment
The data presented in the results tables in the LCA report can be used to identify and demonstrate how different design options have been considered which could improve building performance. There are 7 credits available in this section and 3 exemplary credits.
Mat 02 Environmental impacts from construction products
The aim of this section is to encourage availability of robust and comparable data on the impacts of construction products through the provision of EPDs. 1 credit is available for using at least 20 products that have an EPD in the construction of the building.
Building LCA
When producing a building LCA an EPD must be chosen and inputted into the LCA software for each product/material used in the entire construction of a building. When a precured product has a specified EPD, this can be inputted into the software and is an accurate data point for that product.
Generic data can be used instead of a product specific EPD when the product does not have its own EPD. However, this is not always desirable as specific EPDs are more likely to have a lower GWP value that the generic data for that product. It is therefore more advantageous for project teams to use products with EPDs in their building LCA to reduce overall carbon emissions.
EPDs provide the basis of a fair comparison of products by their environmental performance and can reflect the continuous sustainability improvement in construction products.
For more information about Environmental Product Declarations on your project, please feel free to get in touch with the author of the article at joe.clough@mainer.co.uk
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