Highlights of the EPD International Stakeholder Conference in London

11th Nov 2017

Jane Anderson from thinkstep provided us with this overview from the International EPD Stakeholder Conference held in London in September.

Sven Olof Ryding from the Swedish Environmental Research Institute opened the conference, highlighting the progress that LCA and EPD have made in the three decades since they first started to be discussed within ISO.

Today there are EPDs from 36 countries registered within the International EPD System. The top five countries for EPD registrations are Italy, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the UK. Beyond Europe, regional hubs have opened in Australasia, South America, Brazil and India.

Construction products account for over half the 730 EPDs in the System, and building environmental certification programmes like BREEAM and LEED are increasingly giving credit for using products with an EPD.

The construction industry, through CEN TC350, is working with the European Commission to ensure that EN15804 will be the basis of Product Environmental Footprints (PEFs) for all construction products. This involves some revisions to the TC350 standards to ensure the two systems align in key areas, such as indicators and provision of LCA data for product end of life.

EcoPlatform is increasing the harmonisation and mutual recognition of EPDs across Europe. Efforts are also being made to make EPDs available in machine-readable format. For example, German IBU EPDs are available through the Oekobau.dat published by the German Government.