Background, Aim and Scope:
Type III Environmental declarations (Environmental product declarations, EPD) are intended to inform interested parties about the environmental performance characteristics of products. They are based mainly on LCA according to ISO 14040/44, provide its results as inventory or impact category indicators and, thus, describe the product system under investigation. ISO 14025 has been published in 2006. The concept of EPD has found a market in particular in the construction sector. It has a considerable part in the European Integrated Product Policy, e.g. documentation of improvement in design for environment, documentation of compliance with green procurement requirements.
Main Features:
EPDs are a means to communicate the results of an LCA-study according to ISO 14040/44 in a comparable and harmonised way. ISO 14025 describes how to develop and document consistent and comparable data sets. This report exemplifies three levels in the development of an EPD for which the standard provides requirements
- Framework for the development of an EPD programme including verification procedures for EPD;
- Defining the rules for conducting the LCA according to ISO 14040/44, as well as additional information for defined product categories (product category rules);
- Development and documentation of an EPD according to the PCR
Results:
After quite a few years of standardisation work the new standard ISO 14025 will provide a systematic approach to documenting and communicating LCA results in an EPD. This will support propagating LCA from its academic origin to a practical tool for the assessment of the environmental performance of a product system. An essential part will be the participation of LCA experts in EPD programmes.
Discussion:
-
Conclusions:
An enormous effort for developing appropriate conventions will have to be taken by all interested parties to come up with consistent and comparable EPDs in different branches. In some areas defining such conventions has been shown to be possible. An important part is the development of quality criteria for modelling as well as for the databases used to calculate the LCA. To find sufficient credibility at economically acceptable conditions with a minimum of bureaucratic effort more practical experience will have to be gained. This holds especially for the trust in the EPD results based on the independence of the review, transparency of procedures and the participation of interested parties.
Perspectives:
There is a demand on education for SME developing EPDs for their products as well as for the users of EPDs on how to document EPDs transparently and apply them properly.
|
