Environmental Product Declarations are reshaping construction transparency, but inconsistent standards create specification challenges. Stephanie Palmer of wienerberger explores whether standardisation is the solution – and if it’s truly achievable.
It’s no secret that product data transparency matters more than ever before. As specifiers, contractors, merchants and manufacturers all seek to reduce their own environmental impact, efforts are increasing to reduce buildings’ operational emissions and cut embodied carbon from construction projects too. Whether it’s to meet regulatory pressure or planning requirements, client expectations or building efficiency standards (or, more likely, a combination of all), product environmental impact data is no longer a ‘nice to have’ – it’s a fundamental consideration at every stage of the construction process.
The industry has made significant strides in recent years to address operational energy use, with improvements in building fabric, such as increased insulation and a focus on build quality. Now, attention is increasingly turning to embodied carbon – the emissions associated with raw material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance and end-of-life disposal of the products and materials used within the building.
In many buildings, embodied carbon now represents a large proportion of whole-life emissions, particularly with advances in operational performance. This shift has placed a renewed focus on the materials that are specified and installed in our buildings, and the data used to compare them.
Making comparisons
One of the most important steps for specifiers and building designers when looking to reduce embodied carbon is to understand exactly what they’re dealing with. Informed decisions rely on accurate, comparable and transparent data, placing increased emphasis on manufacturers to share robust environmental impact information about their products. Without such transparency and verification, specifiers and contractors are left trying to make decisions based on incomplete or inconsistent data. It’s an impossible task, which inevitably leads to guesswork.
That’s where Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) come in – verified documents that set out a product’s environmental impact across its entire life cycle, from raw material through to the manufacturing, installation, operation and disposal/recycling phases.
Developed in accordance with recognised standards such as EN 15804, EPDs provide data on impacts such as carbon emissions, water use and waste, and are designed to enhance credibility and consistency, enabling like-for-like comparisons between products from the same manufacturer. In doing so, they provide an invaluable tool for specifiers, supporting evidence-based decisions and helping projects to meet sustainability targets.
At wienerberger, we’ve recently published EPDs for our UK manufactured brick and roof tiles, as well as for other products in our wall, roof, heating and water management portfolio, supporting customers in their search for transparency and accessibility around product environmental impact data. It’s an important step in our Carbon Reduction Plan, supporting wienerberger’s transition to a net-zero emission, nature-positive built environment.
Standardisation – or not?
As EPDs become increasingly sought after by project teams – and, subsequently, prioritised by manufacturers – their uptake inevitably grows. However, there is one important consideration; not all EPDs are created equal.
Differences in system boundaries, scenario assumptions, declared units, and the modelling datapoints used can all make meaningful comparison difficult. For specifiers and contractors working under time pressure, navigating these nuances can be challenging. In some cases, leading to misleading comparisons and conclusions.
Standardisation matters. A more consistent approach to producing EPDs would improve confidence in decision-making and ensure that environmental performance claims are genuinely comparable. It would help level the playing field, rewarding those manufacturers that invest in improving their processes and reducing environmental impact, rather than those who simply present data in the most favourable way. For the wider construction industry, it supports better benchmarking, more accurate whole-life carbon assessments and, ultimately, more sustainable buildings.
Addressing the challenges
Yet achieving true standardisation is not straightforward. Whilst standards such as EN 15804 provide requirements for modelling, creating EPDs requires the effective use of complex data sets and making scenario assumptions, with room for interpretation.
For example, construction products vary widely in the way they are made, used and disposed of. Even within an individual product category, there can be various datapoint options for similar raw materials, and some flexibility in how the in-use and end-of-life stages are modelled, which make it difficult to compare like-for-like products with confidence. Global supply chains, evolving production methods and regional variations further add to the complexity.
So how do we move forward? We believe that EPD creators should focus on greater modelling transparency and user education. Clearer guidance on how EPDs should be used, collaboration between manufacturers and greater transparency surrounding scenario assumptions and the datapoints used would all help specifiers make better-informed choices. Recently, some LCA software providers have acted on the latter, requiring those creating EPDs to provide more detail on the modelling datapoints used and assumptions made, which are visible to those reading EPDs.
Whatever happens next, manufacturers have a responsibility to continue investing in high-quality, independently verified Environmental Product Declarations and to communicate the modelling results clearly. Standardisation may not be simple, but greater consistency and transparency is achievable – and both are vital if EPDs are to fulfil their purpose as a tool for constructing sustainable buildings.
Download wienerberger’s EPDs at https://www.wienerberger.co.uk/epds.