An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a standardised document that provides transparent and comparable information about the life-cycle environmental impact of products. Serving as a credible, third-party verified tool, an EPD communicates quantifiable environmental data for a product, based on predetermined parameters and in accordance with international standards. This tool is particularly useful for companies looking to market their products based on environmental performance and for consumers who are increasingly making purchasing decisions that align with their environmental values.
Download a free example of an EPD report down below this article.
What is an EPD?
An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a document revealing the environmental impact of a product. The set-up and creation of an EPD is standardised in the ISO 14025. The declaration informs the reader about the results of a life cycle assessment (LCA) study, that is always carried out first in order to retrieve insight in the environmental impacts.
Following this LCA-study, an extensive report is obligatory (by ISO 14040 en ISO 14044). This report describes all aspects of the product under study. These include the bill of materials, energy use during production and supplier information. This is information most companies do not want to disclose to the outside world.
Hence, an EPD is a communicative version of the life cycle impact assessment report, and excludes company sensitive information.
What is the purpose of an EPD?
Companies use EPDs to provide specific, accurate, and non-misleading information about the environmental impact of products. It thus forms a document that communicates the footprint of a product. This document communicates the result both internally – with colleagues – and externally with customers. Where an LCA report is often for internal use, an EPD is used to communicate the environmental impact of a product externally.
In addition, it is drawn up in such a way that it is easy to compare different products within the same category. For example, these are used to assess products, support fair choices, and encourage the market to continuously improve their environmental impact.
What information is in the EPD?
Typically, an EPD provides information about a product’s:
- Energy consumption
- Resources utilised in the supply chain
- Emissions generated during the production and usage phases
- Waste generation when the product is disposed of, including greenhouse gases emitted from landfill waste.
All this information is presented without sharing confident or company-exclusive information.
Download an example of a EPD report down below this article, to get an impression of what information is presented in an EPD.
EPD program operators
In order to ensure validity, EPDs can be verified. Depending on the purpose and region, verified versions are applied for so-called EPD databases, hosted by program operators. Examples are Environdec, or the Dutch ‘Nationale Milieu Database’. LCA experts that are allowed for verification are listed on these database websites. After verification, the documents are valid for an average period of five years.
There are various EPD program operators that exist alongside each-other. All program operator can set the exact requirements for their database, but all are operating in line with determined standards to ensure the quality and reliability of the results.
An EPD has to be verified by an approved independent verifier before being registered and published in to the databases. To which database you upload your EPD, depends on various variables. Sometimes your client asks for listing in a specific database, or you want to apply for a tender, and they ask for a specific database.
These are examples of EPD databases, to which we applied EPD's for our clients:
- EPD International. The program is operated in accordance with a.o. ISO 14025, ISO/TS 14027, ISO 14040, ISO 14044 and ISO 14067. For construction products, their EPD programme also complies with the European standard EN 15804 (A1 and A2) as well as ISO 21930.
- B-EPD. The Belgian EPD programme applies the requirements of the Royal Decree on Environmental Messages. The FPS of Health relies on the NBN EN ISO 14025 standard
- IBU-EPD. The German Institut Bauen und Umwelt e.V is a program operator for environmental product declarations (EPD) according to the EN 15804 standard.
- Nationale Milieu Database. This Dutch database has their own method ,The Environmental Performance of Construction Works Determination Method (Determination Method). Together with EN 15804 and the underlying standards, this provides the rules for drawing up LCAs within the framework of the National Environmental Database (NMD).
- MRPI. Dutch Milieu Relevante Product Informatie, following the EN15804, is one of the most important building blocks for the National Environmental Database (NMD).
How do we develop an EPD?
The ISO14025 standard serves as the base for developing EPDs. This standard ensures a streamlined process that allows for comparing different products. When available, product category rules (PCR) serve as the rules, requirements, and guidelines supporting the standard for specific product categories. For example, in the European construction sector, the EN 15804 serves as a PCR for conducting the analysis.
The PCR describe the exact rules how the LCA study has to be conducted (for all products from that category), considering for example the system boundaries of the studies, the declared/functional unit, how to define the different phases in the life cycle and what impact categories have to be assessed.
Some countries even have additional requirements. For example, companies need to follow the ‘NMD-bepalingsmethode’ when developing in the Dutch construction sector.
Example of an EPD
To give you a glimpse of what an EPD looks like, you can check out our example EPD.
It presents the comparison of environmental impact between the life cycles of an aluminium and a biodegradable coffee capsule. For demonstration purposes, it follows the EN15804 standard and Dutch calculation methodology ‘Bepalingsmethode’. No PCRs are currently available for this product group.
Compared with an LCA report, the EPD is a more concise report that presents the environmental impact without providing sensitive product specific information. It is much shorter and easier to read, which makes it a great communication resource.
