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Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs): Improving Material Selection Options in the IgCC
The International Green Construction Code
The International Green Construction Code (IgCC) is the first model green code to include sustainability measures for an entire construction project and its site. As an overlay code, it establishes minimum green requirements for buildings by exceeding the companion ICC model codes in the areas of energy efficiency, water usage and waste reduction, as well as focusing attention on health, safety and community welfare.
Green buildings necessarily require careful product and material selection criteria. When the first version of the IgCC was developed in 2012, the material selection chapter used a “single attribute” approach, rewarding single attributes like bio-based content, recycled content, or regionally produced materials. Today, understanding a product’s environmental footprint increasingly considers all attributes (called a multi-attribute approach) across all of the phases of a product’s life, including parameters such as energy consumption during manufacturing, waste impacts during installation and the product’s maintenance requirements. And this approach, importantly, considers potential energy savings the product may offer during the long “use” phase as well as outcomes at its end of life disposition. The International Organization for Standardization, called ISO standards, explains how to apply these multi-attribute, life cycle approaches.
While ISO offers standards and guidance that help companies conduct life cycle assessments of their products, ISO standards can do even more than that. For companies that choose to develop an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) under the ISO 14025 standard, the first step before an EPD is written (in general) is for an industry group to develop and establish a set of Product Category Rules (PCRs) for doing EPDs that contain LCAs. A PCR is a pre-requisite for conducting an EPD – this is covered in the ISO 14025 standard. The standard Product Category Rules (PCRs) are standardized rules for collection and reporting of environmentally-relevant information in an entire product category (like insulation or pipe). Within these rules, a company can better develop an ISO-compliant Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on its product, which measures the product’s impact upon the environment across multiple attributes throughout its life cycle. Then, a company can prepare a report called an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) if they so choose, following the rules set out in this ISO 14025 standard. An EPD is a declaration that discloses the life cycle environmental performance of products and services – it is not a claim of environmental superiority. This comprehensive, third-party-reviewed process and documentation can in turn, make approval decisions and judgments easier to use and understand for code officials, because they can consider an EPD as a verified IgCC compliance report.
Environmental Product Declarations
EPDs Improving the Materials Selection Options in the IgCC
The IgCC is a green overlay code that is used in conjunction with the other ICC model codes. An EPD option would be just ONE of several Material and Resource Compliance Pathways in the IgCC.
Product Category Rules
A PCR (Product Category Rule) is defined in ISO 14025 as a set of specific rules, requirements and guidelines for developing Type III environmental declarations for one or more product categories.
Life-Cycle Assessment
Why should I care about EPDs?
Is this a big change?
Do EPDs give builders more or fewer choices?
More. Including EPDs in the model code gives builders more compliance options and more choices. The IgCC still includes single attribute materials and resources compliance pathways, EPDs would provide additional compliance choices to builders.
Won’t these processes result in costly requirements that would increase construction costs?
Shouldn’t green codes be product-neutral and not favor one product over another?
» Learn More: Three EPDs from Underwriters Laboratory Environment (ULe) on spray foam insulation
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