Industry associations are harnessing their collective power to develop information about the environmental impact of their products. The Galvanizers Association of Australia (GAA) recently published an EPD produced by thinkstep-anz that covers a range of steel products that are hot dip galvanised after fabrication by members. The data was collected from 23 GAA member plants in Australia, representing 72% of the total number of batch hot dip galvanising plants in the country. In the wood industry, Abodo Wood, Red Stag and Taranaki Pine are among the ten NZ timber producers to have contributed to the NZ EPD project led by Wood Processors & Manufacturers Association (WPMA), which covers a range of timber products made from sustainably managed NZ radiata.
Stephen Mitchell, principal consultant at thinkstep-anz, based in Sydney, notes that EPDs covering a wide range of building products will help customers reduce the embodied carbon of their projects, while industry-average EPDs will be beneficial for benchmarking production performance.
With the wood and galvanised steel industries moving to industry-wide EPDs, Barbara Nebel, CEO of thinkstep-anz is excited for the future: “Industry associations like the GAA and the WPMA are showing real leadership by taking an industry-wide approach to EPDs. This not only demonstrates commitment across the industry, but also provides a benchmark for all members and will enable them to work on reducing their environmental impacts.”