Climate declarations

EPD information is sometimes considered to be unspecific and too wide as they cover all relevant aspects of the environmental performance of a product. In most cases EPD information has very distinct user needs to meet, e.g. for checking the absence of hazardous chemicals, for information about the use of renewable or non-renewable resources, about the potential environmental impact for a selected impact category or about suitable ways to recycle/reuse of the product in the end-of-life stage.

Typically, EPD information is normally reported in a format including pre-determined compulsory information for all relevant impact catego­ries, regardless of the intended use of the information by different audiences. This type of communication of an often very complex nature has unfortunately led to a relatively low market penetration of EPD information. The international EPD^®system did at an early stage identify this problem and, as a response, introduced the concept of "single-issue EPDs", as a digest of an entire EPD with the ambition to adjust the information into a simpler format in order to better meet to various market and customer requirements.

Climate declarations suit specific market demands

One area where there is a constantly growing demand for information is information related to climate change. The international EPD^®system has therefore issued so-called "Climate Declarations" as the first example of single-issue EPDs. A climate declaration "describes the emissions of green-house gases, expressed as CO₂-equivalents for a product's life cycle. It is based on verified results from life cycle assessment (LCA) - based information in accordance with ISO 14025".

Read more about Climate declarations at the Climate declaration website