How is an EPD created?

Note:

  • To par­tic­i­pate in the IBU EPD pro­gramme, you cur­rent­ly need to be a mem­ber of IBU.
  • To cre­ate an EPD and cal­cu­late the life cycle assess­ment, you will usu­al­ly need an exter­nal life cycle assess­ment service provider (LCA practioner).
  • IBU does not pro­vide any life cycle assess­ment ser­vices or con­tent-relat­ed con­sul­tan­cy in this regard.

Our FAQs pro­vide a brief and con­cise answer to the most fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions about EPDs.

To the FAQ

WHERE? EPD platform

The EPD process at IBU is dig­i­tal and takes place via our EPD Plat­form (EPD-Online).

This makes your EPD data machine-read­able and all par­ties involved have con­stant access to the lat­est data.

The plat­form also ensures that all EPDs have a stan­dard­ised layout.

All rel­e­vant basic doc­u­ments are pro­vid­ed in the EPD-Online tool.

Reg­is­tra­tion and use are free of charge; only when the EPD is sub­mit­ted for ver­i­fi­ca­tion does a charge­able order arise for the IBU.

 

 

 

Webi­nar video: Intro­duc­tion to the EPD-Online platform

WHO? Project participants

IBU’s EPD pro­gramme offers com­pa­nies and asso­ci­a­tions the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate Envi­ron­men­tal Prod­uct Dec­la­ra­tions for their products.

The stake­hold­ers involved are the man­u­fac­tur­er (and its LCA prac­ti­tion­ers), IBU as the EPD pro­gramme oper­a­tor with its Advi­so­ry Board, inde­pen­dent ver­i­fiers and the inter­est­ed pub­lic. This ensures objec­tiv­i­ty and transparency.

HOW: The EPD process

1. Prod­uct Cat­e­go­ry Rules (PCR): the basis for cre­at­ing EPDs

Every EPD is based on the Prod­uct Cat­e­go­ry Rules (PCR).

PCR Part A con­tains gen­er­al cal­cu­la­tion rules for the life cycle assess­ment and applies to all prod­ucts. PCR Part B spec­i­fies the require­ments for the con­tent to be declared for indi­vid­ual prod­uct groups.

  • All cur­rent PCR doc­u­ments are avail­able on the EPD online plat­form after free registration.
  • If there is no PCR Part B guid­ance text for your prod­uct group, the first step is to cre­ate one togeth­er with the IBU. The IBU office is the point of con­tact for this: verification@ibu-epd.com.

2. Data col­lec­tion, life cycle assess­ment and EPD creation:

First, a life cycle assess­ment (LCA) must be car­ried out for your prod­uct and the required data must be col­lect­ed. This can be done by the com­pa­ny itself or by an exter­nal life cycle assess­ment service provider. Our net­work of LCA prac­ti­tion­ers lists com­pa­nies that have already cre­at­ed EPDs for the IBU EPD pro­gramme. The costs and dura­tion vary depend­ing on the prod­uct and service provider.

Once the cal­cu­la­tion is com­plete, the data is trans­ferred to the EPD online plat­form and a back­ground report is cre­at­ed. Once all the data is com­plete, the EPD can be sub­mit­ted for offi­cial ver­i­fi­ca­tion, for which a fee is charged.

3. Inde­pen­dent ver­i­fi­ca­tion and publication:

After sub­mis­sion for ver­i­fi­ca­tion, an inde­pen­dent ver­i­fi­er is assigned to the EPD project to check the EPD and back­ground report for com­plete­ness, plau­si­bil­i­ty and con­sis­ten­cy of the cal­cu­la­tions and data in accor­dance with the prin­ci­ples of ISO 14025, EN 15804 and the IBU pro­gramme rules.
The dura­tion of the ver­i­fi­ca­tion process varies depend­ing on the com­plex­i­ty of the prod­uct, the qual­i­ty of the data and the nec­es­sary cor­rec­tions; as a rule, sev­er­al weeks should be planned.

The ver­i­fiers are not allowed to offer any con­sult­ing ser­vices and the ver­i­fi­ca­tion process will be ter­mi­nat­ed if the qual­i­ty is insufficient.

After suc­cess­ful ver­i­fi­ca­tion and a final approval process by the IBU, the EPD is pub­lished as a PDF and XML data set. It is valid for five years, after which an update is required.

All EPDs already pub­lished by the IBU are available:

Costs

Mem­ber­ship fee and EPD fees:

  1. A Mem­ber­ship at IBU is required to par­tic­i­pate in the EPD pro­gramme. The annu­al mem­ber­ship fee is based on the applicant’s turnover and is reg­u­lat­ed in the mem­ber­ship dues regulation.
  2. The costs for the ver­i­fi­ca­tion and pub­li­ca­tion of the EPD in the IBU can be found in the fee sched­ule. They are divid­ed into two parts: 
    • one-off costs for ver­i­fi­ca­tion and pro­cess­ing: €2,000 per EPD
    • an annu­al fee for the trade mark, which is grad­ed accord­ing to the num­ber of EPDs (€960 to €120)

If sev­er­al EPDs are sub­mit­ted at the same time and with the same back­ground report, the office may set low­er costs for the ver­i­fi­ca­tion of fur­ther EPDs on a case-by-case basis.

The rel­e­vant doc­u­ments can be found via mem­ber­ship.

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EPD automa­tion: EPD and LCA tools

In addi­tion to the clas­sic EPD cre­ation, the IBU also offers the ver­i­fi­ca­tion of soft­ware tools for EPD creation.

If you are inter­est­ed in a tool solu­tion, please con­tact us directly.

LCA Tool

LCA tools are par­tial­ly auto­mat­ed and require man­u­al data input of the inputs and out­puts of the prod­uct sys­tem for EPD gen­er­a­tion. After the auto­mat­ed cal­cu­la­tion of the EPD envi­ron­men­tal indi­ca­tors by the tool, these and oth­er prod­uct-spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion must be trans­ferred by the tool oper­a­tor to the EPD form of the IBU EPD plat­form. Each EPD gen­er­at­ed in this way is sub­ject to an indi­vid­ual, sim­pli­fied verification.

EPD Tool

EPD tools gen­er­ate EPDs ful­ly auto­mat­i­cal­ly and inde­pen­dent­ly of the IBU EPD plat­form. Typ­i­cal­ly, prod­uct-spe­cif­ic data (e.g. mate­r­i­al lists) that is already avail­able in a company’s soft­ware sys­tem, or prod­uct con­fig­u­ra­tors, is linked to rel­e­vant life cycle assess­ment data.
The ver­i­fied eval­u­a­tion sys­tem of the EPD tool cal­cu­lates the results of the EPD envi­ron­men­tal indi­ca­tors, which are auto­mat­i­cal­ly entered into a defined EPD form togeth­er with oth­er required prod­uct-rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion. EPDs cre­at­ed with an EPD tool by the tool oper­a­tor no longer require indi­vid­ual ver­i­fi­ca­tion before publication.