Will you include an "Environment Product Declaration" in your next building quote?

Relax. It doesn't mean more paperwork for you right now, but it's a good idea to understand what an EPD is because it will inevitably become an essential part of how we build in the future.

EPD certification is like an international stamp of environmental approval for building products, encouraging manufacturers to make genuine and measurable commitments to sustainable production.

EPDs support carbon emission reduction by making it possible to compare the impacts of different materials and products to select the most sustainable option.

EPD demand is growing fast

EPD Australasia was established in 2015 by New Zealand and Australian life cycle professional associations (LCANZ and ALCAS), with seed funding from other groups, including BRANZ and the Sustainable Steel Council.

While it is unlikely that EDPs will be necessary for private residential building in the short term, they may become a requirement soon for publiclyfunded buildings such as schools, healthcare facilities, government buildings and public housing.

In the European Union, all public procurement bodies must use EPDs to assess the environmental footprint of products, and many other countries follow a similar track.

The NZ Government has already signalled that EPDs will likely be adopted here; they have already been included in the building environment rating scheme, Green Star New Zealand www.nzgbc.org.nz/greenstar

In summary

▶ EPDs provide information on the life-cycle carbon footprint and other impacts of a product or service based on a life-cycle assessment (LCA).

▶ The independent, third-party verified data that EPDs provide is valued across the supply chain, from designers to developers.

The organisation has registered 64 EPDs for Australian and New Zealand companies and industry associations since its inception, and over 90% of those are for building and construction products.

▶ Whole life carbon includes the embodied carbon impacts arising from the extraction, manufacture and transportation of construction materials and the building's operational energy needs.