What is an EPD?

EPD stands for Environmental Product Declaration or translated to English – an environmental product declaration.

EPD is a method to calculate and document the properties of a specific product based on recognized European and international standards.

Thus, an EPD is a statement of the climate and environmental impact of a given product from the emissions of raw materials to processing and final production of a product up to use, as well as recycling or disposal.

Why is an EPD important?

An EPD provides a complete overview of a product’s impact on the climate and environment and can therefore identify potential areas for action to optimize and reduce the impact. This can happen, for example, through:

choosing raw materials that have less impact
reducing unnecessary use of raw materials
optimizing the production processes of your products
producing locally and delivering locally to reduce the impact via distribution

From January 2023, building regulations for new constructions have introduced limit values for how much they may impact the climate and environment. You can read more about EPD, as well as the direct and indirect significance for the entire production industry in the article “Climate requirements for new construction affect the entire industry“.

What perspectives are there for EPD?

An EPD is prepared based on three different levels, each respectively including the basic or the complete statement of impacts on climate and environment.