What are EPDs?

Environmental Product Declarations…or EPDs. What are they?

EPDs are documents that transparently communicate the environmental performance and potential impacts of any product or material over its lifetime. EPDs make it possible to compare the impacts of different construction materials and products in order to select the most sustainable option. EPDs have far-reaching benefits for everyone and are used for:

• Quantifying the improvement in environmental performance of a product

• Allowing comparison of materials in order to select the most sustainable option

• Marketing purposes

Forwarding-thinking manufacturers, focused on the ESG goals of their operations, are analyzing the carbon impact of their products. ZCS provides product life cycle analysis and publication of EPDs that will include:

• Third-Party Certification (Type III)

• Conformance with EPD requirements under ISO 21930 and EN 15804 standards with a

  minimum cradle to gate scope (Modules A1-A3, Product Stage)

We work with manufacturers to compile all the necessary data for the analysis. This will include defining the declared and functional unit, and identifying the Product Category Rules for the analysis. We will gather information about the raw materials, energy, and waste for the manufacturing process. We will work with a qualified Program Operator to ensure relevant standards for the analysis are followed, the EPD is efficiently verified and published.

In fact, Embodied Carbon is now part of CALGreen code!

The building industry contributes about 40% of the total carbon emissions contributing to global warming. Fully half of those emissions are embodied carbon from the fabrication of building products, the transportation of those products to building sites, and the construction process.

Non-residential buildings >100k sq ft and schools >50k sq ft will be required to run whole building LCAs and embodied carbon analyses as part of CALGreen. Two of the compliance options for this requirement are dependent on published EPDs for building structure and enclosure products.

These changes go into effect on July 1, 2024 and ZCS provides Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) in addition to Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) for single products — so please reach out to us if you have any questions about this critical update to the CALGreen code.