COMMUNICATING ENVIRONMENTAL
PRODUCT DECLARATIONS (EPD ®)•Convince your colleagues about thevalue of identifying significant
environmental aspects, monitoring andimproving your product’s performance•

Reach out to your suppliers
to collaborate on how to
improve their processes•

Give the market and consumers
transparent and relevant information
relating to the environmental
performance of your products

ENVironmental product declaration
EPD making
sense

Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) present relevant and verified
environmental information about goods and services from a life cycle
perspective.
The International EPD® System is world’s broadest system for environmental declarations, with a global scope and covering all types of goods
and services.
Improve your environmental work through decision-making and targetedcommunications based on objective facts.

with epd
you can• Fairly compare environmental performance• Reflect continuous environmental improvement• Present relevant environmental information

use it to reachdifferent
decisIonmakers

The information in an EPD is objective and can be used in many ways
regardless of whom you want to reach with your EPD verified product,whether it is product designers, environmental managers or consumers.
These are the most common areas where decision-makers can make useof the information in an EPD:
• Internal environmental management – Monitoring and improving
performance of products.
• Business-to-business – Communicating performance with relevant andreliable data
• Business-to-consumer – Communicating the difference you are making
for the environment• Professional buyers – Verifying compliance through presenting yourEPD

EPD ®
Internal
environmentalmanagement

EPDs are a way of creating a baseline for environmental performancein a company. Performance can gradually be improved through thehelp of monitoring.

Businessto-businessAll businesses operating in a supply chain may benefit from developing
EPDs in order to present the environmental information desired by thebuyers. In this way, they contribute to efficient management and reduced
workload in each tender process.

EPDs are for professional use in more than one sense. To professionalpurchasers an EPD may prove that a supplier’s product meets thecontracting entity’s environmental requirements, in addition to function,
quality and design.

Professionalpurchasing

Businessto-consumers

If the product is a consumer product, the EPD can ideally be presented
on the packaging and in marketing material reaching end customers. It is
important that EPDs for consumer products are simple to understand.

explaining
the advantages

InternationalThe International EPD® System is based on the international ISO standards,
assuring international use, acceptability and continuity.
Adaptable
No minimum levels or preferences of environmental performance.
Open to all types of products, target audiences and markets.
Credible
Based on scientific principles for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) andapproved through independent verification.
Comparable
Based on specific rules for different product categories (PCR) ensuringthat EPDs within the same category of products are calculated andpresented in the same way.
Comprehensive
Providing a tool for communicating additional information such as social
responsibility, quality control and environmental management.
NeutralAny type of goods or services can be monitored. EPDs provide neutral
facts rather than meeting specific demands.

EPD ®
Company information, technical description, content declaration, use ofresources, environmental impacts, information about verification and anyother environmental information relevant to the product.

facts that areincluded in anenvironmentalproductdeclaration

Logotype

Validity

Registration number
Environmental performance

Reference towww.environdec.com

Use of recourses; non renewable and renewable

Additional information
Contains information not derived from the LCAbased calculations, e.g. instruction for a properuse of the product, maintenance and service ofthe product and information on recycling.

Co2
Potential enviromental impact

Other indicators

Mandatory statement
Contains information about any omission of life
cycle stages, means of obtaining explanatory
materials, a statement indicating that EPDsfrom different programmes may not becomparable and information about verification.

A company may choose to present information in an EPD for the productas a whole, such as a fridge freezer, or related to the functional unit, suchas the environmental impact per litre refrigerated volume and year. It isnecessary to provide information which allows different products to becompared.

Comparingproducts –functional unit
and declared
product

life cyclestages

The environmental impact categories are separated into the following
life cycle stages:• Upstream processes: includes raw material, acquisition andrefinement as well as production of intermediate components• Core processes: manufacturing processes• Downstream processes including usage and end-of-life stages

Extraction andproduction of
raw materials

Refining ofmaterials

Core processes

Upstream processes

product
categoryrules (PCR)

climatecommunications

Manufacturing

PRODUCT CATEGORY RULES ACCORDING TO ISO 14025:2006
DATE 2014-10-01

PRODUCT GROUP: UN CPC 33360
GAS OILS
2014:15
VERSION 1.01
VALID UNTIL: 2017-09-29

Usage,Operation,
Maintenance

Recycling / Landfill

Downstream processes

PCRs are developed for different productcategories and are the rules behind each
EPD. They tell how information should becollected and calculations carried out.
These documents are open to all and giveinformation on identifying significant
environmental aspects and ways to improvethe environmental performance.

The increased awareness of global warming leads to a need for information about carbon footprint of products. All climate communications
cover the whole life cycle of a product. A climate declaration can be
described as an extract of all climate related information from an EPD,
reported in so-called CO2 equivalents.

EPD ®
Many companies want to make claims of their products’ environmental superiority. Such claims must, however, be used in a credible
and truthful manner. If the company has developed an EPD, this is acomprehensive basis for marketing.

ENvironmental
claims inmarketing

The international standard ISO 14021 states that only environmental
claims that can be supported by up-to-date and documented facts
may be used. Vague claims, such as ”environmentally friendly” should
be avoided.
Downstream

CoreUpstream

Total
Raw materials

Carbonfootprint
Ecologicalfootprint
Water
footprint

Processing
materials

Assembly

< 0.1

0.3

Use

End-of-life

5.2
0.8

1172
0.1

904

0.110211055kg CO2/kg

6.4

global m2/kg

437432< 0.132< 0.1

liters/kg

Example of how to present EPD information in a simple way.

Companies are free to choose how to present
their EPDs as long as the system requirements oncontent and transparency are respected. Showing
how much a consumer will save, e.g. in terms ofenergy, is better than outlining energy use per unit. Currently there is nostandard way of presenting EPDs to the consumer. One suggestion is touse clear symbols, graphs and figures.

S-P-00123
environdec.com

A special logo has been designed, and it may only be used within theframework of the International EPD® System, or in accordance withspecific agreements made with the program operator. The EPD® logo canbe used in connection with e.g. advertising, on products and packaging.

graphic design

Valhallavägen 81
114 27 Stockholm
Sweden