EPD Australasia Turns 10

3rd Sep 2024

This week, EPD Australasia celebrates a milestone: our 10th birthday!

Launched on 2 September 2014 by the Life Cycle Association of New Zealand (LCANZ) and the Australian Life Cycle Assessment Society (ALCAS), our mission was clear – to provide a robust and transparent EPD programme for business within Australasia.

Fast forward to today, and we are proud of how far we have come. From publishing just a dozen or so EPDs (Environmental Product Declarations) each year in our early days, we’ve now published 397 EPDs by 125 companies covering thousands of products.

“EPDs are such an exciting field to be involved in right now, the momentum is huge, and we are really proud after 10 years to be continuing to support our EPD holders to publish independently verified environmental data on their products. We will continue to seek ways to improve our service to Australian and New Zealand businesses and advocate more widely on the value of EPDs,” said Kelly Taylor, Programme Manager.

Our range of EPDs has expanded considerably over the past decade. While construction products still lead the pack, we’ve now published EPDs for food, tissue, chemicals, wood pulp, packaging materials – and even a train carriage! This variety underscores our adaptability and dedication to covering a broad spectrum of products and industries.

EPD Australasia has emerged as one of the most successful regional hubs of the International EPD® System, in terms of the number of EPDs published. We’ve become the gold standard for transparent reporting of environmental information on products and we’re recognised in infrastructure and building sustainability rating systems including the Infrastructure Sustainability Council’s IS Rating Scheme and the Australian and New Zealand Green Building Councils’ Green Star.

As we look to the future, we’re excited about the next chapter. We’re driving efforts to enhance digital access to EPD data, making it easier than ever for stakeholders to access the credible information they need for better, more sustainable decision-making. So, watch this space – there’s a lot more to come!

Happy Birthday to us! Congratulations to all EPD holders who have published EPDs with us in the last 10 years and a heartfelt thank you to our technical team, LCA consultants, third-party verifiers, support staff, board of directors, accredited process certification bodies and EPD International who have been part of this incredible journey. Here’s to the next decade of setting standards and leading the way in environmental transparency!

Photograph taken at the launch in September 2014 – From left to right: Anthony Hume, Rob Rouwette, John McArthur, Barbara Nebel, David Dowdell, Sarah McLaren, Tim Grant, Helene Seidel-Sterzik and Nicole Sullivan.