An EPD (Envi­ron­men­tal Prod­uct Dec­la­ra­tion) is a mul­ti­page doc­u­ment describ­ing the envi­ron­men­tal effects of build­ing prod­ucts based on a life cycle assess­ment with quan­ti­ta­tive data. It is cre­at­ed by the man­u­fac­tur­er and reviewed at the IBU by inde­pen­dent ver­i­fiers on the basis of ISO 14025 and EN 15804 norms, and is sub­se­quent­ly published.

An EPD serves to pro­vide trans­paren­cy to the pub­lic regard­ing the envi­ron­men­tal influ­ences of build­ing prod­ucts. It is the basis for the eco­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of build­ings in build­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tems such as the DGNB or BNB sys­tems, or LEED, BREEAM, and HQE. In addi­tion, EPDs clar­i­fy the opti­mi­sa­tion poten­tial over the life­time of their prod­ucts to man­u­fac­tur­ers, who, as a result, can estab­lish process­es that con­serve more resources, are more envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly and more economical.