Environment Product Declaration
What is an EPD?
- The concept of EPDs is based on the standard ISO 14025, which is internationally recognized and developed with in the International Organization for Standardization.
- An EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) is a verified and registered document that communicates transparent and comparable information about the life-cycle environmental impact of products.
- Having an EPD for a product does not imply that the declared product is environmentally superior to alternatives — it is simply a transparent declaration of the life-cycle environmental impact.
- An EPD is created and registered in the framework of a programme based on ISO 14025.
- EPD, Type III Environmental Declaration (ISO 14025), differs in many aspects from type I third-party and type II self-declared eco-labels. EPDs consider the full Life Cycle Assessment of goods and services. Compared to alternative reporting formats such as eco-labels and self-declared labels that only cover aspects of a life cycle perspective, EPDs cover the full LCA of goods and services.
-
EPDs can be used for all types of goods and services
There are no restrictions regarding what products that can have EPDs as there are no criteria on environmental performance that must be met. EPDs works for both goods and services and companies all sizes have registered EPDs. -
EPDs contains verified environmental information
The EPD is a third-party verified document which gives the information credibility and therefore is very suitable for procurement. -
EPDs are based on a transparent and open framework
ISO 14025 requires the programme operator to publish the programme instructions, product category rules and registered EPDs. The transparent framework makes it possible to understand the calculations and methods behind the results in the EPD. -
EPDs gives comparable information within the same product group
EPDs that are based on the same product category rules (PCR) are comparable as the PCR set the rules for the life cycle assessment that the EPD must meet, for example allocation rules, data quality requirements and system boundaries.
PCR ( product category rule)
Set of specific rule, requirements and guidelines for developing EPD for one or more product categories
- Developed separately for groups of similar products (ones for which the same functional unit can apply)
- PCR establishes system boundary (cradle-to-gate or cradle-to-grave)
- Specific set of environmental impact categories
- How to model the product system (e.g. functional unit, system boundaries)
- You must have PCR before you do EPD
Steps to be followed to get a verified EPD

What are the most important applications of an EPD?
- An EPD provides relevant and verified information to meet the various communication needs. This may be relevant within the supply-chain and for end-products both in the private and public sector, as well as for more general purposes in information activities and marketing.
- The potential uses and application include:
- Green public procurement (GPP)
- Environmental management systems (EMS)
- Ecodesign
- Business-to-business communication
- Business-to-consumer communication
- Building assessment schemes
Several similar products may be included in the same EPD
- The International EPD System offers the possibility for similar products from the same company to be included in the same EPD. The following requirements must be met:
- Similar products with differences between the mandatory impact indicators lower than ±10% may be presented in the same EPD using the impacts of an environmentally representative product. The criteria for the choice of representative product shall be presented in the EPD, using, if applicable, statistical parameters;
- Similar products with differences between the mandatory impact indicators higher than ±10% may be presented in the same EPD but using separate columns or tables.
- For the purpose of these requirements “similar products” means products covered by the same PCR and produced by the same company with same core process.
Validity of an EPD
- An EPD is valid from completion of the last step of the EPD process (Registration & publication) until a final validity date, which is declared in the EPD.
- The EPD validity is normally five years. An expired EPD can still be published to give environmental information for products still in use but may not been used in marketing.
- Regardless of the validity, a published EPD shall be updated during its validity if one of the environmental indicators has worsened for more than 10% compared with the data currently published.