Two new construction product EPDs registered with the Australasian EPD Programme are the tip of the iceberg in the take-up of EPDs worldwide in the last few years.
Forest and Wood Products Australia have published an industry-wide EPD for Australian-produced glued laminated timber (glulam). This cradle-to-grave EPD includes stages of production, preservative treatments and five end-of-life scenarios for hardwood, cypress and softwood glulam.
Access EPD here.
Winstone Wallboards is New Zealand’s only manufacturer and largest marketer of gypsum plasterboard, drywall systems, associated products and services. The company has released an EPD quantifying the environmental impacts of a range of their GIB® brand plasterboards.
Access EPD here.
International EPD has announced their register now includes 1,000 environmental declarations from 37 countries. Half of these were registered in the period 2014-2017, indicating that the interest in EPDs has grown enormously in recent years.
After construction products, the biggest increase can be seen in the food and agricultural products category. During the past year, new product categories have also emerged, and EPDs have been declared for trains, aircraft, shoes and elevators.
Jane Anderson, an international EPD expert with thinkstep, has also calculated that there are now 5,000 construction product EPDs verified compliant with EN15804 registered by EPD programmes worldwide. Drivers for this growth are diverse and include:
Credits within Sustainable Building Assessment schemes
Legislation requiring EPD to support environmental claims about construction products
The demand for EPDs to support building level life cycle assessment (LCA).
This is further evidence that EPDs are rapidly becoming the accepted norm around the world for businesses to measure and publicly report on the environmental impacts of their products and services.