Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)
Environmental information based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and presented in a standardised format
Environmental information based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and presented in a standardised format
Environmental product information enables prospective customers to check whether the environmental attributes of products or services meet their expectations, and enables the green credentials of competing products to be compared. Environmental information can be presented in three formats, each of them covered by a separate ISO standard:
EuGeos will help you find the format best suited to your communications strategy and your markets. Get in touch to discuss your specific requirements:
EPDs (also called Type III environmental declarations according to ISO standard) are the environmental equivalent of technical specifications. EPDs present the results of a life cycle assessment (LCA) carried out on the product to quantify its environmental impacts
EPDs are prepared according to strict rules defined by the EPD programme operator; these EPD rules are called Product Category Rules (PCR).
Programme operators are often country-based and/or sector specific, with ISO 14025 setting out the rules by which they operate.
There are several steps to preparing an EPD for a product:
Whatever the EPD programme you choose, ensure the study and its results are independently checked to improve their credibility.
Using our long experience in life cycle assessment (LCA) EuGeos will carry out an expert and impartial review of your EPD. We are also approved to carry out verification of EPDs prepared in accordance with The International EPD® System and with EPD Ireland
Once verified, an EPD is ready for publication; this is done via the Programme Operator.
EPDs will present the environmental credentials of your product to users, for as long as they're valid - usually 3 or 5 years. Therefore it is important to get the process right: email us before you get started. We will guide and assist you throughout all the EPD stages from conception and data gathering to successful publication.
EuGeos can prepare EPDs according to various programmes, including EN 15804-compliant EPDs for products used in buildings.
Take a look at an EN 15804 EPD we have prepared, and published through The International EPDŽ System and the ECO Platform (pdf document)
We can also carry out an expert and impartial review of your EPDs and we are also approved to carry out verification of EPDs prepared in accordance with The International EPD® System or EPD Ireland
.To help you get started, read our Quick Guide to Environmental Product Declarations >>>
We've compiled factory data for use in EPD preparation, we've conducted LCAs to generate EPDs - and we are practising EPD verifiers.
We are also approved to carry out verification of EPDs prepared in accordance with The International EPD® System and EPD Ireland
Contact us to discuss your EPD project or if you have any questions on EPD preparation and verification: eugeos.ltd@eugeos.eu
The environmental data presented in EPDs are prepared by carrying out a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the product. LCAs can be carried out with ad-hoc spreadsheets and databases, but there are several specialist software tools available on the market. At EuGeos we have used several; now all our EPD and LCA projects are prepared using openLCA, the open-source LCA software.
EPD are increasingly important in the construction sector. In the UK building product EPD contribute to credits in the BREEAM scheme used to evaluate the environmental credentials of buildings. Environmental performance data from construction-product EPD are also being incorporated in BIM (Building Information Modelling) objects, enabling designers and architects to explore the total embedded impacts of different options for a structure as they develop them.
For greater harmonisation in the industry, the Europe-wide norm EN 15804 provides a framework for producing EPDs, and the ECO Platform promotes mutual recognition between different EPD programmes, facilitating access to a wider market.
European standard EN 15804 is a core product category rule (PCR) for environmental product declarations (EPD) of construction products and construction services. It has been widely adopted by EPD programmes in Europe to harmonise many aspects of the production and presentation of EPD for these categories of products.
EN 15804 requires compliant EPD to report a number of indicators, not all of which are calculated by the standard LCIA methods supplied by the ecoinvent Centre as part of the ecoinvent database package. To facilitate the preparation of EN 15804-compliant EPD, at EuGeos we have developed a specific database extension to ecoinvent to allow calculation of specific indicators: the EuGeos' 15804-IA Database to be used with openLCA software.
EuGeos' 15804-IA Database is designed for use with openLCA and is available to download exclusively via the openLCA website.Note that the 15804-IA Database is not a pre-verified EPD tool, although it has been used to produce EPD verified and published in both the UK Building Research Establishment's EPD Programme and the International EPDŽ System.
Download EuGeos' 15804-IA Database for EN 15804-compliant EPD
relevant ecoinvent licence from openLCA Nexus required
