By Lynn Brown, Long Point Associates.
Environmental Product Declaration (EPDs) are essentially an “environmental nutrition label” for a product. But rather than telling the customer how many calories or saturated fat in a package of chips, EPDs provide data on the environmental impact resulting from the production of a specified industrial product, like aluminum extrusion. EPDs generally start from life cycle analysis (LCA) as a basis and include information such as the global warming potential (GWP) measured in CO2 equivalents, acidification potential (AP) in SO2 equivalents, eutrophication potential (EP) in phosphate equivalents, and smog formation potential (SFP) in halocarbons (CFC) equivalents. The EPD will also include information on the ozone depletion potential (ODP) and the abiotic resource depletion potential (ADP) of the product. In order to best communicate the environmental performance and impact of a product or material over its lifetime, all EPDs are produced under several ISO standards and are certified by an independent third party.
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