Product Category Rules (PCR) for declaring the life-cycle environmental impact of Public and private buses and coaches have now been published in the International EPD® System. This document is the first known PCR according to ISO 14025 for the product group, and enables any company in the industry to develop and register an EPD to be used for a wide range of applications, such as as one part of the environmental management system or in business-to-business communication.

The PCR was developed according to the PCR process described in the General Programme Instructions of the International EPD® System, based on ISO 14025. The process was led by Gorka Benito Alonso at IK Ingeniería as the PCR Moderator. During the development of the document, it has been subject to open consultation on www.environdec.com as well as a review by the Technical Committee as the appointed review panel.

An EPD is a type III environmental declaration according to ISO 14025 or EN 15804. However, on the market there are other documents that could be mistaken for being type III environmental declarations, but rather should be seen as self-declarations or the results from LCA studies. Such documents are lacking some important characteristics that true EPDs have. Here are three important things to look for when reading a document claiming to be an EPD, with or without a reference to ISO 14025 or EN 15804:

1. Reference to an EPD programme

According to ISO 14025 the EPD shall refer to the EPD programme under which it has been registered. The EPD programme operator is responsible for making sure that it's documentation fulfills the requirements in the standards. The programme operator has many duties to fulfill, and is intended to ensure transparency and credibility in the declarations. As the programme operator shall maintain a public register over all registered EPDs it is also easy to check the validity of the EPD by visiting the website of the program operator or by contacting the operator.

2. Reference to product category rules (PCR)

The EPD shall also refer the PCR-document that has been used for the EPD development. The programme operator is responsible for that the PCR is developed according to the ISO standard. The PCR document ensures that the EPDs within the same product category are developed and presented in the same way and also gives information on the methods used in the life cycle assessment. The programme operator shall maintain a record over the PCR documents developed within the programme.

3. Information on the verification

The EPD shall have information on the verification process. Most EPD programmes requires a third party verification and the EPD shall contain information on the name of the verifier, which can either be a person or organisation. The EPD shall also give information on the validity date.

In recent years, new potential market applications related to EPD have led to an increased interest among various stakeholders in many countries to take part in the work related to the development of Product Category Rules (PCR), and many initiatives exist worldwide. The international standard ISO 14025 states that:

”Harmonization of general programme instructions and particularly product category rules (PCR) are encouraged between programmes to meet the principle of comparability. (…) programme operators are encouraged to work cooperatively to achieve harmonization of the programmes and to develop mutual recognition agreements”

Research papers such as Minkov et al. (2015) and Hunsager et al. (2014), as well as market best practices such as the Guidance for PCR development have also highlighted the importance of global harmonisation efforts in Product Category Rules.

Companies and associations from 27 countries have registered and published EPDs in the International EPD® System, and it also has a PCR database containing more that 100 product categories spanning construction, food, transportation, energy, goods and much more.

To build upon this and to contribute to the global efforts in the area of PCR in the spirit of ISO 14025, the International EPD® System is launching a new page on its website: Global PCR libraries and resources. This page is intended to work as a focal point for PCR-related information for the benefit of those interested in developing PCRs in International EPD® System and in other programmes.

"With its large library of PCRs and EPDs from different countries, it is natural for the International EPD® System to offer this additional service. We hope that stakeholders will find this useful, and that this may give a boost to global PCR harmonization efforts," says Kristian Jelse, responsible for PCR development and the PCR database.

Date: June 8-10, 2016.
Place: Viña del Mar, Chile.

During the last CILCA Congress held in Peru in June 2015, Chile was awarded with the realization of the next International  Life Cycle Seminar of the Ibero-American LC Network (RICV). RICV has two major international events, one of them is the renown  Life Cycle Congress (CILCA) and the other is the Seminar, alternating every other year.

The next RICV Seminar will be this year in June 8-10; it is organized by the Chilean LC Network together with RICV and UNEP-SETAC LC Initiative, and with the support of the Minitries of Environment and Foreing Affair of Chile, the  Center of Cleaner Production, and the International EPD System. The RICV Seminar will be held in conjunction with the First Chilean Congress on LCA.

Unlike the CILCA Congresses, which have a strong scientific approach and a level of demand that makes them more restrictive, the focus of the RICV Seminars  has a greater emphasis on technical and practical issues associated to the use of life cycle tools; that is, their applications and implementation in the industry, companies and public and private organizations. The works are selected by an expert committee, which accommodates both scientific  and technical presentations  from companies and public and private institutions, as well as from academic and research institutions.

As has happened in all previous seminars and events of RICV, we expect many participants from all around the world, but especially from Chile and Latin America.

All are very welcome!

More information: http://redacvchile.wix.com/lca-event

The Italian company Unifarco has registrered two EPDs for cosmetic products. These EPDs are the first registered for this product category. The EPDs gives information on the environmental impact from four products in two different product lines: "leave-on" cosmetic products and "rinse-off" cosmetic products.

EPD "Leave on" cosmetic products

EPD "Rinse-off" cosmetic products

Most of the Product Category Rules (PCR) available in the PCR library of the International EPD System consists of up-to-date and valid PCRs. These are documents that can be used by any company to develop, verify and register EPDs for their products.

There are, however, a few expired PCRs that have not been updated such as:

• Ball or roller bearings
• Beer (Update March 2016: updating phase of PCR now initiated)
• Electric wire and cables
• Household refrigeration appliances
• Passenger vehicles
• Washing machines and dishwashers for household use

Stakeholders interested in using these PCRs are very welcome to apply to become the new PCR moderator, and to lead the work in the update phase. The update should use these existing documents as starting points for some methodological aspects, but the new PCRs shall be made compliant with the latest General Programme Instructions and the latest PCR template.

Any company, industry association or other stakeholder who is willing to take on the role of PCR Moderator any for these documents is kindly requested to contact the Secretariat (pcr@environdec.com).

On February 24^th, a conference on “Sustainability and energy efficiency improvement through environmental labelling in buildings: LEED; BREEAM, VERDE and DGNB” was held in Madrid, Spain. The conference, with more than 100 participants, was organized by the Dirección General de Industria, Energía y Minas de la Comunidad de Madrid and the Fundación de la Energía de la Comunidad de Madrid.

The aim of the conference was to present the main features and benefits of the implementation of the different certification programs available for buildings in Spain (LEED, BREEAM, GREEN and DGNB) and explain the growing importance of the energy efficiency.

Relevant for EPD stakeholders was that the sustainability of materials through the use of Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) and LCA was also featured. Several cases of successful implementation of building certification programs and EPDs in the industry was presented, including Saint-Gobain and Danosa that have EPDs registered in the International EPD® System.

The conference also included presentations from the organizers, Marcel Gómez Consultoria Ambiental, AENOR, Green Building Council España, Indra and Eneres.

Text for this news bulletin was kindly provided by Marcel Gómez Consultoria Ambiental.

Two new Product Category Rules (PCR) were published in February:

• PCR 2016:01 Other prepared and preserved fruit
• PCR 2016:02 Edible products of animal origin, n.e.c.

The PCRs were developed according to the PCR process described in the General Programme Instructions of the International EPD® System, based on ISO 14025. The development of the PCRs was led by the PCR Moderators Adriana Del Borghi (Dpt Chem & Process Engineering, University of Genoa), and Gorka Benito Alonso (IK Ingeniería), respectively. Stakeholders were invited to provide comments on draft versions during an open consultation, and the documents were reviewed before publication.

The PCRs are now available for any company in the industry to develop and register an EPD of their products. They are available to download from the PCR database in the International EPD® System (www.environdec.com/PCR).

The search functionality of the EPD database of the International EPD® System has now been updated to include two new aspects:

• EPD compliance with the standard EN 15804. Some EPDs that are older or from companies from outside of Europe are not compliant with this standard.
• If listing of the EPD has been done with the ECO Platform. The International EPD® System is an approved programme to use the ECO Platform logotype on its EPDs for construction products compliant with EN 15804. This is a voluntary option during EPD registration.

All existing EPDs in the database have been reviewed to add the required information. If you would located any EPD where this information is lacking, please contact the Secretariat.

On April 5h, the EPD International Secretariat will co-host a breakfast seminar about EPD and BASTA as tools for the construction sector. The event will be in Swedish and take place in Malmö.

Registration is now closed.

Some links at www.environdec.com may temporarily be broken as we are currently implementing background improvements to the website and underlying database. We hope that this does not cause any major inconveniences. If you experience any problems, feel free to report them to the Secretariat.

Update: The website should now work normally. Please contact the Secretariat if you encouter any remaining issues.

ECO Platform has recently published a position paper on "the introduction of an EU-initiated PEF-methodology into the construction sector," encouraging cooperation with international standard bodies and partners associated in their work to be accepted on a global scale.

ECO Platform is an International Non-Profit Association established by European EPD Program Operators registering ECO Platform EPDs, European Trade Associations in the construction sector and LCA practitioners.

The position paper may be downloaded from the ECO Platform website.