EPD Overview
Produced by, or on behalf of a product manufacturer or group of manufacturers, an EPD is the main source of information about construction products required for input to Whole Life Carbon Assessments (WLCA) of infrastructure and building projects.
Assessing the impact against a range of environmental indicators, such as global warming potential (also known as embodied carbon), an EPD is an output of a life cycle assessment methodology (LCA).
While an EPD will identify global warming potential, it’s important to bear in mind that an EPD does not measure carbon content, which is a measurement of mass. EPD will assess embodied carbon through LCA and study the impact of the product through the entire construction life cycle.
One LCA methodology used to produce an EPD is the European Standard EN 15804. This sets out the Product Category Rules for the development of an EPD for construction products to ensure that all required products are assessed consistently, using the same approaches and methodology.
How to read an EPD
1. General Overview
The EPD will then look at the ‘Declared/Functional unit’. This refers to the specific quantity or functional performance measurement of the named product. This unit is often used as a reference point for the result reporting. For instance, environmental impacts might be reported per kilogram or metres squared of product.
2. Declared/Functional Unit
The EPD will then look at the ‘Declared/Functional unit’. This refers to the specific quantity or functional performance measurement of the named product. This unit is often used as a reference point for the result reporting. For instance, environmental impacts might be reported per kilogram or metres squared of product.
3. Interpretation & Additional Information
The next section, interpretation and additional information, focuses on the scope of assessment and which life cycles are included. In this section, it is mandatory to include factory impacts from start to finish as a minimum. This incorporates everything from modules A1-A3 and End of Life to modules C and D, as illustrated above.
4. Product Description
Following this comes the Product Description. As it states, this section provides a full description of the product to aid the identification process.
5. Technical Information
The Technical Information section will provide basic technical properties of the product that are relevant to their use case, the manufacturing process and product use and installation where relevant (such as service life of a product, life expectancy and maintenance requirements, and end of life options). This would include compliance with standards or performance information.
6. Life Cycle Assessment Calculation
Next up is the Life Cycle Assessment Calculation (LCA) rules section. This covers the calculations, assumptions, and any data sources used when conducting the LCA. The subsequent LCA results section will identify quantitative findings obtained from the LCA of the product.
7. Scenarios & Summary
The Scenarios and additional technical information section is where any additional details and scenario information relating to the product’s impacts beyond the factory gate are displayed.
8. Summary of Key Findings
Finally, the Interpretation and additional information section will provide a summary of key findings. It will also include any additional details that support the usefulness of the overall EPD.