Manufacturing Sustainable Change One EPD At A Time
By Christian Mabey, Managing Director, Optima Products.
Today it’s almost impossible to ignore the potential for any business decision, well-intentioned or otherwise, to have a negative impact on our planet. This is particularly the case when it comes to the manufacturing and specifying of building products.
As a result, sustainability has become a key factor for those involved in the built environment. From architects and contractors to asset owners and facilities managers, there’s an increasing demand to minimise the environmental footprint of a build, from planning through its operational life.
Much comes down to the structural and interior materials, fixtures and finishes chosen for any given project, their maintenance, and how they are repaired or replaced during a scheduled refit. In this regard, it’s crucial that Facilities Managers be aware of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), as they contain important independent third-party verified information about specified products’ sustainable credentials, water and energy use, ozone depletion, and global warming potential. Nonetheless, they remain poorly understood by the industry in terms of their purpose and roles.
As the manufacturer of market-leading glass partitioning systems, I’m acutely aware of the significance of attaining EPDs and their crucial role in sustainable specification. So here, I want to explore EPDs in a little more depth, defining what they are, and how they are directly helping to reduce emissions across our built assets.
EPDs Explained
For those unfamiliar with this increasingly important documentation, EPDs are a validation tool that manufacturers can use to demonstrate their commitment to environmental sustainability, helping facilities managers and specifiers make informed purchases.
Going deeper, EPDs are composed in compliance with ISO 14025:2006 Environmental Labels and Declarations - Type III. Essentially, they’re a report covering life-cycle inventory data, providing a transparent view of the environmental performance of a product, typically from conception to disposal.
A central part of the process is a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which assesses the extraction of raw materials, the production process, distribution, use of the product, as well as its end-of-life value, such as whether it can be recycled or reused. The data is externally verified by an accredited external third party to make sure it is compliant with the relevant standards.
The data presented in an EPD is set out in a standard format so it simplifies the comparison process for customers, and removes the need for them to interpret different kinds of LCA, or data claiming to be an LCA. Although EPDs educate consumers on the product, they are for disclosure purposes only. This means the product itself may not necessarily meet any environmental performance standards.
Steering Clear Of Misleading Claims
As we’ve observed, sustainability is high on every facilities manager’s wish list, in fact, it’s rapidly becoming a non-negotiable factor in the material selection process.
The growing pressure on the construction industry is indeed leading to significant changes in the way property, commercial and residential, is designed, built, managed and maintained. However, the practice of greenwashing is also becoming more visible. This process consists of conveying a false impression or providing misleading information about how a company's products are more environmentally sound.
In this regard, EPDs are an essential tool to help mitigate greenwashing by formalising standards within the industry and creating a level playing field for greater accountability and consistency. For example, the EPD for a product to be used in an office fitout from one supplier can be compared with one from another supplier, facilitating the decision process and assuring full transparency about the sustainable outcome of a project. Essentially, an EPD is equivalent to a nutrition label on food packaging, providing the cold, hard facts.
Sustainability For The Modern Workplace
We’ve seen a definitive shift in priorities recently as organisations are increasingly concerned with how to actively get involved in the collective effort to reduce their carbon footprint. It’s rapidly becoming another important requirement facilities managers need to consider beyond the baseline provision of a safe, well-maintained environment.
I would advise facilities managers to consult EPDs, but not rely on them alone. The question for facility managers, as EPDs become more widely available, is how to make use of their detailed content in their overall product selection process without being overwhelmed with data-heavy material.
Choosing products should begin with understanding your organisation's priorities and project goals, which are likely to be performance and efficiency. Therefore, you should establish criteria so that your story when evaluating products is consistent. EPDs do not ensure product performance and they are not a ‘green seal of approval’. They are a tool to measure a product’s environmental impact and it remains the facilities manager’s role to make decisions according to the information at hand.
It should also be noted that EPDs do not only hold the potential to benefit individual projects or specifiers. By providing transparent data and encouraging a new, environmental way of thinking, EPDs are an opportunity to provoke impactful changes within the built industry as a whole, leading to a higher level of credibility and sustainability.
Click the article to enlarge it.
