The EPD is an ISO type III Environmental Declaration acc. ISO 14025 standard. As that, the EPD differs in many aspects from ISO type I third-party (independent eco-labels) and type II self-declared eco-labels.
An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) transparently reports objective, comparable and third-party verified data about products and services’ environmental performances from a lifecycle perspective.
Where the EPD is the final report, the foundation of any EPD is a life cycle assessment (LCA). This LCA allows you to evaluate your product’s environmental performance over its entire life cycle. It typically takes into consideration your full value chain, from material extraction to manufactured product, its usage stage and end of life.
An EPD is a so-called type III environmental declaration that is compliant with the ISO 14025 standard. A type III environmental declaration is created and registered in the framework of a programme, such as the International EPD® System. EPDs registered in the International EPD System are publicly available and free to download through the EPD Library.
In physical terms, an EPD consists of two key documents:
• The underlying LCA report, a systematic and comprehensive summary of the LCA project to support the third-party verifier when verifying the EPD. This report is not part of the public communication.
• Public EPD document that provides the LCA results and other EPD content.
As a voluntary declaration of the life-cycle environmental impact, having an EPD for a product does however not imply that the declared product is environmentally superior to alternatives.
EPDs are based on International Standards. The concept of EPDs is based on the standard ISO 14025, which is internationally recognized and developed with in the International Organization for Standardization.
EPDs consider the full Life Cycle Assessment of goods and services. Compared to alternative reporting formats such as eco-labels and self-declared labels that only cover aspects of a lifecycle perspective, EPDs cover the full LCA of goods and services.
EPDs can be used for all types of goods and services. There are no restrictions regarding what products that can have EPDs as there are no criteria on environmental performance that must be met. EPDs works for both goods and services and companies all sizes have registered EPDs.
EPDs contain verified environmental information. The EPD is a third-party verified document which gives the information credibility and therefore is very suitable for procurement.
EPDs are based on a robust, transparent and open framework. ISO 14025 requires the programme operator to publish the programme instructions, product category rules and registered EPDs. The transparent framework makes it possible to understand the calculations and methods behind the results in the EPD.
EPDs gives comparable information within the same product group.
EPDs that are based on the same product category rules (PCR) are comparable as the PCR set the rules for the life cycle assessment that the EPD must meet, for example allocation rules, data quality requirements and system boundaries.
“Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) certificates are independent declarations that quantitatively evaluate and declare the environmental performance of a product or service, as described in ISO 14025, on the basis of the principles of ISO 14040 Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) standards.”
As with most materials, there are many industry-wide EPDs, and there are product- and manufacturer-specific EPDs. Having an industry benchmark can provide an additional layer of comparison to independent product data, particularly as many manufacturers place differing emphasis on sustainability in their manufacturing processes.
BQV, as accredited organization by the National Accreditation System (ESYD) according to ISO 17065 and registered verifier on the electronic platform of the organization EPD International AB, undertakes the verification of Environmental Product Declarations (EPD’s).