The Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is defined as a type III environmental declaration by the CSN ISO 14025 standard as "quantified environmental information on the product life cycle, which should enable comparisons between products performing the same function". It has the specified parameters given by the ISO 14040 series of standards, but may also contain other additional information concerning the environment.
The actual environmental product declarations are documents containing measurable information on the environmental impact of a product obtained on a scientific basis - e.g. exact material composition of the product, consumption of raw materials and energy at various stages of its life cycle and greenhouse gas emissions, ozone depletion, acidification of soil and water, eutrophication of water and formation of photochemical oxidants. The acquisition of these data is based on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology and the resulting statement itself is the final output containing product information with clearly arranged LCA results.
The aim of the declaration is to provide a tool for objectively comparing products according to their environmental performance and, through this information, to support the demand and supply of more environmentally friendly products and services, including natural resources, thereby stimulating the process of improving the environment which is driven by the market itself. The outputs of the EPD are used in the methods of comprehensive evaluation of the quality of buildings in terms of their entire life cycle (LEED, BREEM, SBToolCZ) and will also be subject to gradual fulfillment of the 7th basic requirement for constructions according to the CPR Regulation (Regulation (EU) No. 305). / 2011 - CPR) in harmonized technical specifications.
The basic standard ČSN ISO 14025 (for EPD) was supplemented in 2012 by the standard ČSN EN 15804 Sustainability of buildings - Environmental product declaration - Basic rules for the product category of construction products, which defines the basic procedures for creating EPD in the field of construction products. This creates the necessary basis for further elaboration of specific requirements for individual product groups (PCR - Product Category Rules) and their application in harmonized standards.
The EPD processing procedure consists mainly of:
- the elaboration of detailed production schemes;
- the definition of unit processes at the required levels;
- the definition of the declared / functional unit of the product;
- the definition of places in unit processes where data can be obtained (monitoring of inputs / outputs);
- for all data used, always document the path to this data.
Within this offer, the Pilsen Branch of the Technical and Test Institute for Construction Prague, SOE (TZÚS Prague), provides EPD preparation for the field of the product in accordance with ČSN EN 15804. EPD preparation requires close cooperation with production facilities in obtaining the necessary data and localizing the resources.