A project’s embodied carbon is becoming an increasingly important metric, and choosing products with responsible environmental impacts is now an essential part of the construction process. One way to quantify the reduction of embodied carbon emissions as an architect, engineer, designer, or product manufacturer is through the use of an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD).
EPDs build off of product category rules (PCRs), generally-defined sets of rules and requirements that act as a guide for developing Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) and EPDs. EPDs are often defined in terms of type I: environmental labelling according to general environmental compatibility of products, type II: self-declared environmental claims, and type III: third-party verified environmental declarations. These type III EPDs are widely considered to be the most thorough and reliable, and are the standard for providing an EPD.
EPDs are comprehensive, standardized, and third-party verified— creating a solid base for product comparison on common terms. An EPD quantifies a product’s environmental impact in terms of various environmental indicators, like ozone depletion potential, acidification potential, and global warming potential (GWP), as well as energy consumption, material resources consumption, and waste generated. For the construction industry, EPDs are quickly becoming a required part of the planning process.
EPDs can be distinguished by their specificity and scope. An industry-wide EPD measures the impacts of a type of product, like this industry-wide EPD of normal-weight concrete masonry unit (CMU) products as manufactured by Canadian Concrete Masonry Producers Association (CCMPA) members, including data from multiple manufacturers within a geographic region. A product-specific EPD measures impacts for a specific product, including data from multiple facilities operating under one manufacturer. The most precise EPD is facility-specific, measuring the impact of a specific product from a single manufacturer, using the unique data points of one facility.
Similarly, the scope of an EPD can be made broader or narrower to fit certain requirements, much like a life cycle assessment (LCA). A cradle-to-gate EPD, the most common variety, covers a product’s environmental impact from raw material extraction through manufacturing. The material input of a product is a crucial factor of an EPD; this comprehensive disclosure is essential for transparency and impartial product comparison across the industry.
CarbiCrete set out to create a facility and product-specific EPD for its cement-free concrete masonry units (CMUs) produced by CarbiCrete’s production partner, concrete manufacturer Patio Drummond, in 2024. This EPD was developed by Climate Earth, the leading provider of EPDs in the concrete industry. The second part of this blog will discuss CarbiCrete’s EPD results, and this EPD’s massive reduction compared to the industry standard.
