Environmental product declarations — how to make EPD creation feasible, scalable, and automated

Learn about environmental product declarations (EPDs) with One Click LCA’s EPD Customer Success Manager Graham Devlin and Senior Product Manager Arturs Alsins. 

What are the benefits of EPDs

EPDs offer various benefits, including transparency, credibility, and differentiation in the marketplace. By providing verified information on a product's environmental performance, EPDs enable consumers and stakeholders to make informed choices, driving demand for environmentally friendly products. Additionally, EPDs facilitate gaining accreditation for green certifications and schemes, identifying hot spots in a product's carbon footprint, and providing data to support clients' carbon commitments.

Read more about the Business benefits of investing in EPDs

Global compliance — why manufacturers need EPDs

Ensuring global compliance with EPD requirements presents a significant challenge, due to varying standards and regulations across different countries and regions. EPD requirements differ significantly from one place to another, with about 50 different program operators worldwide. These differences may stem from national or regional regulations or simply local preferences. 

For instance, European markets generally accept EPDs created with the EN 15804+ A2 standard, while other regions may have their own specific requirements:

• In Belgium, sustainability marketing claims need to be accompanied by EPDs published with the B EPD program.
• In France, EPDs must be used in regulatory LCA models and published through approved national programs like INIES and PEP ecopassport. 
• Germany mandates the use of specific databases and calculation methods for federal projects. 

Despite the complexity and cost associated with meeting these requirements, EPDs play a crucial role in demonstrating product sustainability and meeting regulatory obligations. To ensure compliance and streamline the EPD creation process, tools like One Click LCA’s EPD Generator offer automated solutions.

Read more about Global EPD requirements by country

Challenges in EPD creation

Despite the benefits, EPD creation poses significant challenges, including:

• Complexity: gathering data and conducting LCA modeling with different environmental factors can be a long and complex process.
• High costs: not all companies have the means to create EPDs with the traditional process.
• Need for third-party verification: an environmental product declaration (EPD) needs to be verified by an independent third party before it can be published.

Additionally, navigating disparate standards and training staff can also be cumbersome, delaying the widespread adoption of EPDs across industries. To address these challenges, One Click LCA is collaborating with global Program Operators, reducing EPD creation costs and expediting the third-party verification process.

How to make EPD creation feasible, scalable, and automated with One Click LCA’s EPD Generator

One solution to address the challenges of EPD creation is One Click LCA’s EPD Generator. By streamlining the process and ensuring compliance with industry standards, the EPD Generator empowers manufacturers to create verified EPDs efficiently and accurately. With automated tools and scalable solutions, EPD creation becomes not only feasible but also a catalyst for sustainable innovation and growth to a wider range of industries. 

The EPD Generator offers a versatile solution for creating environmental product declarations (EPDs) compliant with ISO and EN standards across various industries. Users can perform unlimited life-cycle assessments (LCAs) and generate EPDs for any product category. The tool ensures adherence to international standards such as EN 15804+A1, EN 15804+A2, ISO 14067, INIES, and TRACI 2.1, while modeling LCAs and EPDs in alignment with ISO 21930, ISO 14040, ISO 14044, and ISO 14025. Additionally, it provides the flexibility to create customer-specific private EPDs and TM65-compliant calculations.