Did you know that NORSUS contributed to developing the EPD system in Norway and the Nordics? An EPD is built on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which NORSUS (then under the name of Østfoldforskning) introduced in Norway around 1990. Together with other actors we worked to establish a more formalized EPD system from 1998.
Every year NORSUS develops 15-20 EPDs, sometimes as stand-alone work for clients, but often as part of a broader collaboration to help companies reduce their negative environmental impacts and innovate for more sustainable production.
But what is it?
An EPD is a standardized and independently verified environmental declaration that quantifies the environmental impacts of a product from a life cycle perspective.
Based on the ISO 14040 series, an EPD addresses a significant number of environmental impacts such as global warming, eutrophication, acidification, resource depletion, and water deprivation.
So why do companies develop EPDs?
An EPD is a valuable tool for businesses, enabling them to clearly communicate the environmental performance of their products to customers, stakeholders and consumers.
EPDs provide verified LCA-data that enables more informed purchasing decisions.
In the construction sector, EPDs contribute significantly to green building certifications like Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), hence contributing to more sustainable and eco-friendly construction practices.
And how is it done?
To ensure comparability of EPDs, it is important that products within the same product category, or which are used to solve the same function, use the same methodological rules. This is ensured through EPDs for products and services being developed in accordance with so-called product category rules (PCRs).
A PCR document describes the requirements for how to calculate, develop and communicate an EPD for a product within a specific product group.
All EPDs in the construction sector that are to be registered in Norway must be developed according to the European standard EN 15804+A2:2019 and follow the prescription of the relevant PCR.
EPD-Norway has developed a general PCR part A for all building materials (PCR Part A: Construction Products and Services), which must be followed, together with a PCR part B for the specific product.
The construction sector is the sector who has developed the use of EPDs the furthest. For other sectors, no general PCR part A is developed within EPD-Norway or other programs, and such products must refer to the overall EPD standards and EPD program instructions, in addition to a PCR part B.
Module based system
EPDs follow a modular system in order to facilitate the possibility to sum up the results from several EPDs and the following modules shall be declared:
- A1 Raw material supply (raw material extraction and processing)
- A2 Transport of raw materials to the manufacturer
- A3 Product’s manufacturing (provision of all materials, use of water, energy, and direct emissions)
- A4 Product’s transport to customer
- C1 Product’s deconstruction, demolition
- C2 Product’s transport to waste processing
- C3 Waste processing for reuse, recovery and/or recycling at end of life (EoL)
- C4 Waste disposal at end of life (EoL)
- D Benefits and loads beyond the system boundary
EPDs at NORSUS
At NORSUS an EPD is performed in accordance with ISO 14025 “Environmental labels and declarations - Type III environmental declarations - Principles and procedures” and EPD-Norway’s General Program Instructions and underlying standards and PCRs and may comprise the following activities:
Note that the verification of an EPD must be done by an approved third-party verifier. Several researchers at NORSUS are registered verifiers. A complete list of approved verifiers can be found at www.epd-norge.no.
Want to know more?
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8egvshD_Sc or contact our EPD coordinator Mafalda Silva.