The Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) in the United States together with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) have produced an Embodied Carbon Toolkit for Architects covering:
The toolkit should be useful for architects in the UK and Europe as well as North America.
Finally, with only 14 months to go before 2025, CO2nstruct Zero have said that they will be able to provide data on their 2025 target for 40% of product portfolios to have EPDs in Quarter 1 of 2024.
In the meantime, we still have no idea whether a “product portfolio” means a manufacturer’s portfolio of products, and whether they could meet this target if they have just one product specific EPD for one of their products, or whether they need to have specific or average product EPD covering their whole portfolio?
When I looked at EPD for UK produced products at the start of 2023 as part of my PhD research, I found around 600 EPD from 110 UK companies and 5 UK trade associations. The Construction Products Association in the UK states their industry comprises nearly 24,000 companies covering construction product manufacturers and suppliers. Assuming this would mean 24,000 product portfolios, then performance against this metric at the start of 2023 would be 0.46%. To meet the target by 2025, CO2nstruct Zero would need 9,500 more companies to develop at least one EPD.
So my guess is that “small businesses” will not be included initially. BEIS estimate that 1.6% of VAT registered UK businesses had 50 or more employees (they classify businesses with less than 50 employees as small), so this would quickly bring us down to around 384 eligible product portfolios (if the construction product sector is similar to the UK business sector in general), and with 110 UK companies already having at least one EPD, already 4.5% would already have met the requirement (though I suspect a few of those 110 companies would be classified as small businesses).
Even if 400 medium and large UK construction product manufacturers had at least one EPD, we would still be a considerable way from allowing every client in the built environment sector to have available carbon data for construction products to make informed lower carbon choices, if these EPD didn’t cover the range of products in their portfolios, and the range of construction products that are used in construction.
It seems clear that the original metric and target was not developed with any real understanding of what it might mean. I look forward to the publication of the next CO2nstruct Zero Performance Framework Quarterly Report to find out exactly how they have defined the metric and how they think the industry has performed.
The UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard is recruiting for a Technical Writer to take the information and principles presented to them by our Technical Steering Group and use them to write a formalised standard that is aligned with the principles followed by BSI, CEN and ISO. The job description and application process are available at https://www.nzcbuildings.co.uk/_files/ugd/6ea7ba_adf95a330b48481da4ee72798bebd483.pdf
Deadline 20th October 2023.
EPD Ireland have published two videos for those starting to engage with EPD.
‘What is an EPD’ and ‘How to read an EPD’ have been funded by the Irish Construct Innovate Programme.
I’m delighted to announce that I’m now Dr Jane Anderson, having completed my PhD with Dr Alice Moncaster, Dr Derek Jones and Emeritus Professor Robin Roy at the Open University. My thesis was, perhaps unsurprisingly, on ‘Reducing Embodied Carbon in the Built Environment: The Role of Environmental Product Declarations’. It is now available to download, together with my other publications, at https://oro.open.ac.uk/view/person/jla336.html.
I’m looking forward to taking some of the research further over the coming years and making use of it practically in the industry.
It’s been a while since my last post – I’m in the final stages of writing up my PhD so there’s not a lot of free time, but I have had time to update my EPD Infographic for the start of 2023, and I’m confident that there are now at least 130,000 EPD for construction products available globally, with more than 40,000 using EN 15804.
Looking just at EPD to EN 15804 that have been registered within EPD Programmes, then numbers have increased again to over 16,000. However, I have also been given the numbers, for some programmes and tools, of EN 15804 EPD which have been produced from pre-verified tools, account for at least 25,000 EPD. And there are lots of pre-verified EPD tools out that are not included in the list, for example EPD Norge lists over 40 pre-verified EPD tools.
When used by Trade Associations, these types of pre-verified EPD tools are a fantastic way of reducing the costs of producing EPD and allowing SMEs to enter the market. They also allow manufacturers with large product ranges to provide specific EPD on-demand for individual products for particular projects.
The largest number of construction product EPD however are coming from the US, where there are over 80,000 concrete EPD to ISO 21930 listed in the EC3 tool which makes finding EPD within a given distance, with particular performance criterial and maximum carbon impact a relatively simple operation. Again, these EPD have come from a range of pre-verified concrete EPD tools developed for the sector, and with legislation limiting the embodied carbon of concrete in some states, e.g. New York State and counties, e.g. Marin County, some concrete suppliers are starting to produce hundreds of EPD to cover all their sites and mixes.
If you want to find out more, check out the infographic at https://bit.ly/2023-EPD, and if you want to use any of the graphs or figures, please just credit me (Jane Anderson, ConstructionLCA Ltd, 2023).
Once I’ve handed in my PhD, I expect that I’ll be back to posting here more regularly. See you soon!
The latest update of my infographic on construction product EPD Numbers is now available at https://bit.ly/2022-EPD.
EN 15804 EPD numbers are still contining to increase and are now over 12,000, over half available digitally. Taking account of construction product EPD to ISO 21930, there are now over 80,000 EPD, mainly due to over 60,000 digital EPD for concretes to ISO 21930 available in the North American market via the EC3 tool.
The UK EPD listing which I used to provide for the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products has now been transferred to my website, and will be updated every couple of months.
You can find it at https://constructionlca.co.uk/uk_epd/
Please contact me if you come across any new EPD for products produced in the UK.
In a follow on from my previous post, I had been thinking of highlighting two documents which looked like EPD. One claimed that verification was optional for Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) for business to business communication, and the other said it was “awaiting verification”.
Luckily both seem to have disappeared from the internet, and hopefully are being independently verified before being published in an EPD programme.
For all types of products, verification of EPD is a requirement of ISO 14025, the EPD standard, and thus of EN 15804, the European standard for EPD for construction products. Verification needs to be undertaken by an independent expert – they need to be an expert in Life Cycle Assessment, and also of the product group in question, and they need to be independent.
ISO 14025 states, “Independent verifiers, whether internal or external to the organization, shall not have been involved in the execution of the LCA or the development of the declaration, and shall not have conflicts of interests resulting from their position in the organization.”
Why is verification essential? Verification is the check that the standards have been followed. This means that verifiers check, for example, that:
Where EPD have been produced by pre-verified EPD tools, it is still be necessary for the EPD to be verified. For example, the checks on plausibility of the data entered into the tool and that inputs have been linked with the right LCA datasets in the tool still need to be done by an independent verifier.
If an EPD to EN 15804 has been been verified, then the EPD is required to include a table which looks like this one below. It must state whether an internal or external verification has taken place, and it is good practice to name the verifier, although this is only essential if the EPD is aimed at consumers rather than architects and specifiers. If it doesn’t state whether internal or external verification has been undertaken, then you need to check if the EPD has actually been verified, otherwise it isn’t compliant with the standard.
All EPD also have to give the date of issue and period of validity – this is normally 5 years from issue. If the EPD doesn’t state when it was published or how long is it valid for, then it is not compliant with the standard and is not an EPD to EN 15804.
If you are not sure about an EPD, contact the manufacturer or EPD provider and ask if it complies with the standards and has been verified. Let me know if you find documents which look like EPD but don’t seem to comply.
I’m really pleased that as part of the series of EPD Briefing Papers I’ve been writing with the ASBP, I’ve been able to compile a new online Briefing Paper which lists all the EPD for UK produced construction products with links.
Finding EPD for UK produced products has been difficult for specifiers and those assessing embodied carbon, with the EPD spread across numerous EPD Programmes – this paper brings them together and with over 350 EPD, I believe it is comprehensive. They are mainly manufacturer specific EPD, but there are a number of sector EPD for the UK covering brick, concrete and timber, and I have also included a list of European Sector EPD.
If you are aware of other EPD, please contact me to let me add them. We are looking to update the Briefing Paper regularly so it remains a current listing.
The other ASBP EPD Briefing Papers provide an introduction to EPD, How to Use EPD and Where to find EPD in general. If you are interested in finding out more about EPD and how to read and use them, I will be running a Webinar with ASBP – Understanding EPD on 22nd April.
An expert in Life Cycle Assessment for the Construction industry
ConstructionLCA 