What you need to know about an Environmental Product Declaration

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Environmental management is a significant matter for several businesses and commercial washroom manufacturers to act on now to implement measures that reduce their carbon footprint, save water and energy, and protect our natural resources. Acquiring EPDs for various products forms part of the environmental management process.

Obtaining Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) is increasingly becoming a prerequisite for architects, contractors, and specifiers to procure from their commercial washroom provider.

As a commercial washroom manufacturer of prestige commercial washroom products, we often get asked whether our products have accompanying EPDs. This article will explain what an EPD is, the EPD requirements, and if you should obtain an Environmental Product Declaration for every washroom product.
 

What is an EPD?

An Environmental Product Declaration is a document which reports verifiable information about a washroom product’s environmental performance. It also includes comparable and third-party verified data.

The findings in this document declare information based on data procured from the product’s Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), but what is a Life Cycle Assessment? It is a process that evaluates the impact of a washroom product on the environment during its measured lifespan, whether expressed as cradle-to-gate, cradle-to-grave or cradle-to-cradle.

Licenced LCA software uses the product lifecycle data input into the program to calculate the overall environmental impact of the product’s carbon emissions which is presented in a series of tables. The research involved during product data collection is extensive, thorough, and gruelling.

Does an EPD mean the washroom product is eco-friendly?

Not necessarily. Obtaining an Environmental Product Declaration only makes it possible for architects, contractors, specifiers, and sustainability consultants to compare the impacts of different washroom products to ensure they select the most sustainable and environmentally friendly option.

If environmentally detrimental materials and processes are employed to produce a product, the EPD will reflect this.
 

What are the EPD requirements?

As previously mentioned, an Environmental Product Declaration is a document heavy piece of data collection artwork, and we could write a whole new article on everything it includes. But considering we want to explain the basics of this complex report, we’ll spare you from some heavy reading for now.

Be that as it may, what we can say, to give you an idea, EPD requirements include washroom product information about the following:

Cradle to gate

• Raw material extraction and primary forming techniques.
• Transportation modes and distances between process locations.
• Assembly, testing, packaging, and stocking.
• Delivery transport modes and distances.

Gate to grave

• Installation methods.
• Emissions and waste during the product’s useful life span.
• End of useful life disposal methods.

Grave to cradle

• Potential for recycling, up-cycling and/or re-use.
• Issues embedded in all the stages above.
• Fuel and energy types and consumption.
• Health, safety, and environmental aspects.

What happens if you don’t have an EPD?

Not having an Environmental Product Declaration makes it a lot more difficult to compare and analyse the sustainability of washroom products.
 

Why should you obtain an EPD from your washroom manufacturer?

An Environmental Product Declaration that meets the relevant ISO standards helps you achieve EPD and LCA sustainability points during green building certification assessments by BREEAM, LEED and the like. They also help you compare the environmental impact between products to choose the best option that supports carbon emission reduction.

Depending on your sustainability goals will depend on whether you want to go the extra mile to obtain, declare and prove the cradle-to-grave, cradle-to-gate, and cradle-to-cradle life span of your washroom products.