You may have heard the term "EPD" used a lot recently, but what does it mean and why are they needed?
In this blog, we take you through what they are, what the difference is to LCA's and why they are important.
An Environmental Product Declaration is a third-party certified document (Type III Environmental Declarations ISO 14025) that clearly communicates the environmental performance lifecycle of a product from cradle to grave. It details how the product impacts the environment from raw materials to disposal, based on the completion of an LCA.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the methodology used in the creation of an EPD. The LCA uses specific Product Category Rules (PCR) which combines calculations and guidelines to ensure all EPD’s within the same category report the same information. It uses each stage - from raw materials to operational use in factories, packaging, and transport - which assesses potential environmental impacts with the aim to improve the overall environmental profile of the product. The EPD is the verification stage, where an EPD report is created and is published.
EPD’s are a validation tool that are important for both manufacturers – to provide transparent data about the environmental sustainability of their products – and specifiers to make informed purchasing decisions with simplistic design data.
At Weber we take sustainability very seriously. As part of Saint-Gobain, we are committed to making the world a better home, and collectively we care about building better for people and the planet by reducing the environmental impact of our products and operations.