What an Environmental Product Declaration is
An Environmental Product Declaration is a standardised, independently verified statement of a product's environmental performance over its life cycle. It is not a rating and not an award: it reports numbers, calculated under fixed rules, and it is valid for five years. A reader can compare two declarations only when both follow the same Product Category Rules and the same declared unit.
Declarations of this kind sit under ISO 14025 as Type III environmental declarations, use ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 for the Life Cycle Assessment method, and for construction products use EN 15804:2012+A2:2019 as the core rules. Older declarations were written to EN 15804:2012+A1:2013.
Six stages, in order
Nothing can be skipped and nothing can be reordered. A declaration that has not been independently verified cannot be registered, and a declaration that has not been registered by a programme operator is not a published EPD.
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Product Category Rules
Select the Product Category Rules that govern your product: the core rules for construction products, the programme operator's own PCR, and often a product-specific c-PCR on top. This decision fixes the declared unit, the system boundary and the indicators. ERKE does this.
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Data collection
Collect primary data from your plant by spreadsheet and questionnaire, supplemented by interviews: materials, energy, transport, water, waste and production volumes for the reference year. ERKE does this, with your production team.
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LCA modelling
Model the life cycle in LCA software against a background database, calculate the indicators required by the PCR and document the assumptions, allocation and cut-off rules. ERKE does this.
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Declaration drafting
Write the declaration itself and the underlying project report in the programme operator's format, so the verifier has something auditable to read. ERKE does this.
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Independent third-party verification
An independent verifier, appointed under the programme operator's rules, audits the LCA model, the data and the draft declaration and signs it off. ERKE appoints and coordinates this verifier and then stops. ERKE never performs the verification.
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Registration and publication
The programme operator registers the verified declaration, issues its registration number and publishes it in a public library. The programme operator does this, not ERKE.
The party that models your LCA must never be the party that verifies it
This is the whole basis of a Type III declaration's credibility, and it is the question to put to any consultant who offers you one. Ask them, in writing, who verifies the declaration and who appointed that verifier.
ERKE performs the Life Cycle Assessment, drafts the declaration and coordinates the independent verifier. ERKE does not verify, does not certify, does not approve, does not issue and does not register declarations, and is not a programme operator, an EPD registry, a licensee or a regional operator of any EPD programme.
Of the declarations we authored, twenty are registered in a public library. Verification on those twenty was carried out by seven different named independent verifiers, working under six programme operators, and their names are published next to the declarations they signed.
Cradle-to-gate or cradle-to-grave
The boundary decides what the numbers mean. Two declarations for the same product are not comparable if one stops at the factory gate and the other runs to end of life.
- Cradle-to-gate — modules A1–A3
- Raw material supply, transport to the plant and manufacturing. The boundary ends when the product leaves your gate. This is the minimum for a construction product declaration.
- Cradle-to-gate with options — plus A4 / A5
- Adds transport to the building site and installation, including installation waste. The cement declaration we authored runs A1–A3 plus A5.
- Cradle-to-grave — plus B and C
- Adds the use stage (maintenance, repair, replacement, operational energy and water) and end of life (deconstruction, transport, waste processing, disposal).
- Module D — beyond the boundary
- Reports benefits and loads beyond the system boundary, such as recycling and energy recovery credits. The two tile declarations we authored for RAK Ceramics run A1–A5, B2, C1–C4 and D.
Declared unit or functional unit
Every indicator in a declaration is reported per unit. Which unit you may use is not a choice; the Product Category Rules decide it.
- Declared unit
- Used when the product's function in the finished building cannot be fixed — cement, mortar, timber. The declarations we authored use 1 t for cement and steel pipe, 1 kg for the Entegre mortars and putties, and 1 m³ for Novawood timber.
- Functional unit
- Used when the function can be fixed, and it carries a stated performance and service life — for example 1 m² of a ceiling system, a raised floor, an insulation board, a tile or a fabric with a stated weight and service life.
This matters commercially as well as technically: a buyer comparing your product against a competitor's is comparing per-unit figures, and if the units differ the comparison is meaningless.
Five years, then it lapses
Every declaration reviewed for this site, without exception, carries a five-year validity period. When it lapses the product does not become worse; the declaration simply stops being a current declaration and has to be renewed against current rules and current data.
We apply that to our own record. Two of the declarations we authored — the Çimsa cement declaration and the Erciyaş steel pipe declaration — have passed their end date, and this site presents them as authored work rather than as current declarations. The declarations table marks both.
Product-specific or industry-average
A product-specific declaration describes one manufacturer's product from that manufacturer's own primary data. An industry-average or sector declaration covers an association's aggregate. The difference is commercially decisive: in LEED v4 MRc2 a product-specific declaration counts as a whole product, and a generic industry-wide one as half. A critically reviewed ISO 14044 LCA that is not a declaration counts as a quarter.
The honest answer to “what do you need from us?”
This list is drawn from the method sections of the declarations we have actually authored. It is where the project's real effort sits, and the quality of the declaration is limited by the quality of these numbers.
- Bill of materials and formulation by mass, including every input and its supplier region
- Packaging materials by type and mass per unit of product
- Electricity, fuel and thermal energy consumption, allocated per product line, with the grid mix used — twelve months of readings
- Inbound raw-material transport distances and modes
- Outbound distribution distances, weighted by destination
- Process water use
- Production waste and its disposal or recovery route
- Production volumes for the reference year, so everything can be allocated per unit
Capital goods, plant infrastructure and personnel-related activity are conventionally excluded. Neglected input flows are capped at 5% of energy use and mass. Primary data is collected by spreadsheet and questionnaire and then checked in interviews with your production and purchasing staff.
What we model in, and what we model against
openLCA and ecoinvent
Current standard toolchain: openLCA v1.10, v1.11 and v2.2.0 with ecoinvent v3.8 and v3.10, using the EF 3.1 method. Earlier projects — the cement and steel pipe declarations among them — were modelled in GaBi 6 with the GaBi Professional database.
ISO and EN
ISO 14025, ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, EN 15804:2012+A2:2019 and its AC:2021 corrigendum, EN 15804:2012+A1:2013 for older declarations, and ISO 21930:2007 where a programme required it.
Product Category Rules we have worked under
International EPD System PCR 2019:14 Construction products, c-PCR-014 acoustical ceiling and wall solutions, c-PCR-021 furniture, IBU PCR Cement 07.2014, IBU PCR Steel pipes for pressure applications 05.2016, IBU PCR Part B ceramic tiles and panels, and UL Part B flooring requirements UL 10010.