The HAUS project modelled 85 individual construction products. Of those, just 13 had product-specific EPDs. The remainder were filled in with conservative generic data points, which by design tends to overestimate environmental impact.
This isn’t just a modeling artifact — it’s a commercial disadvantage. Generic product data can make products appear more carbon-intensive than they are, and when specifiers are selecting products to meet tight carbon budgets, they will naturally favor those with verified, specific, and transparent data.
Backed by One Click LCA’s 2025 Carbon Experts Report, we know this isn’t speculation:
The HAUS LCA focused on A1–A3 stages (cradle to gate), covering raw material extraction, transportation, and manufacturing. With a total impact of 38,854 kgCO₂e (or 474 kgCO₂e/m²), it performed 24% better than the UK benchmark of 624 kgCO₂e/m², as defined by LETI.
But the deeper value lay in understanding where carbon was hiding:
Lesson for specifiers and designers: assumptions are risky. Only real LCA data reveals the true carbon cost of materials.
It’s not just about meeting regulatory pressure — it’s about staying in the game.
The HAUS project showed that manufacturers with EPDs are far more likely to be selected, especially during early design when the largest carbon savings can be made. Beyond visibility, LCA is a powerful internal optimization tool. Manufacturers routinely report 10–30% carbon reductions through product iteration informed by LCA data.
This aligns with the HAUS result itself: although only conceptual, the design used renewable materials like timber and biobased insulation to deliver a negative net embodied carbon impact when biogenic sequestration is included:
-46,478 kgCO₂e sequestered, vs. 38,854 emitted — resulting in a net impact of -7,624 kgCO₂e.
Across North America, the regulatory momentum is clear and accelerating.
LEED v5 treats embodied carbon as a core requirement. Environmental product declarations are now necessary to quantify material impacts and earn points under the Building Product Selection & Procurement credit, and manufacturers without EPDs risk exclusion from project bids.
CALGreen's Prescriptive Pathway requires new construction that falls under the specified guidelines to prove compliance through the use of EPDs for the following materials: steel, glass, mineral wool, concrete.
Under California's Corporate Climate Accountability Package, large corporations doing business in the state of California (regardless of where those businesses are headquartered) will be required to report Scope 3 emissions from their entire supply chain. This means that manufacturers looking to sell to large organizations will need verifiable emissions data, often through an EPD.
For manufacturers exporting to the EU, change is already legislated:
Further layers of compliance will come via:
The clear takeaway: waiting for a client to ask for an EPD is too late. If your product isn’t verifiably in the system, it simply won’t be considered. Regulatory expectations are shifting from voluntary best practice to binding requirements. Now is the time for manufacturers to act.
HAUS was more than a showcase home. It was a demonstration of how decisions backed by life-cycle data shape real-world carbon outcomes and procurement decisions.
Manufacturers without verified data risk commercial exclusion and regulatory non-compliance.
Carbon transparency is the new baseline in product specification, both in North America and globally. Manufacturers who embrace LCA and EPDs today position themselves as partners in climate performance. Those who don’t may find themselves left out of the next project, regulation, or market.