Environmental Product Declarations
An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a document that discloses quantified environmental data from a life cycle assessment (LCA) for a product or service. An EPD, also known as a Type III Environmental Declaration, can be thought of as a summary of a LCA, or as Earthsure describes it, “a nutrition label” for environmental impacts. All EPDs must follow a set of rules, called Product Category Rules, which stipulate how the LCA will be conducted, what the functional unit is, and what environmental impact categories will be modeled. In general, most EPDs are produced for business-to- business communication to facilitate purchasing decisions. However, EPDs also can be produced for business-to- consumer use.
EPDs are:
- Based on LCAs that follow a set of technical directions on how the LCA will be developed called Product Category Rules (PCR)
- The PCR is developed by a program operator, an entity separate from the manufacturer of the product, in a process open to the input of interested parties, and is reviewed by a third-party panel
- The EPD is also independently verified
We provided EPD services tailored for each client’s needs, from assistance in EPD creation to verification. Contact us so we can help fit your needs.
Recent Projects
Determining Eligibility of Program Operators for Environmental Labels and Declarations for ANSI
Since 2014, Eileen Ekstrom has been the sole technical assessor working with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to determine if program operators that manage Type III Environmental Declaration programs follow requirements of ISO 14020, ISO 14025, and ISO 21930. A program operator that has met all the requirements outlined in the ANSI procedure become an ANSI Eligible Program Operator. As a technical assessor, Eileen performs document reviews of general program instructions and procedures related to program operation, along with a review of PCR development, PCR review, and EPDs published by the program operator. She interviews key staff members during web-based conference meetings and summarizes the findings to the program operator in meetings and reports. Eileen has performed technical reviews of the following program operators:
- ASTM International
- ICC Evaluation Service, LLC
- NSF International
- SCS Global Services
On behalf of ANSI, Eileen discussed the outcome of this ANSI pilot program at the ACLCA LCA XVI conference in Charleston, SC in the presentation “Navigating Environmental Declarations: Lessons Learned From ANSI’s Eco-Label and Environmental Product Declaration Accreditation Pilot Programs.”