Comparison of two versions of an EPD, using generic and specific data for the foreground system, and some methodological implications

Modahl, Ingunn Saur; Askham, Cecilia; Lyng, Kari-Anne; Skjerve-Nielssen, Camilla; Nereng, Guro

doi:10.1007/s11367-012-0449-0

Cited by 35 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…EPDs also have significant data-quality issues, such as overuse of generic data sets (which is more of a concern in the context of later-stage analysis and decisions than it is in the context of early design-stage analysis, as described above), lack of common data sources, limited data availability (Ingwersen & Stevenson 2012;Gelowitz & McArthur 2017;Minkov et al 2015;Modahl et al 2013), and poor reliability of results due to uncertainty and use of point estimates without confidence intervals or margins of error (Bhat & Mukherjee 2019). Differences between EPDs in their degree of reliance on specific data versus generic data can cause significant differences in results (Modahl et al 2013). All these factors limit the quality and comparability of EPDs.…”

Section: Barriers To Effective Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodied carbon in construction materials: a framework for quantifying data quality in EPDs

Waldman¹,

Huang

Simonen

2020

Buildings and Cities

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Embodied carbon constitutes a significant portion of a building's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and is a key challenge for the construction and real estate sectors. Embodied carbon includes construction product manufacturing, building construction, material replacement and end of life. During the specification and procurement stage, designers and contractors have the opportunity to prioritize products with lower carbon footprints. Environmental product declarations (EPDs) are a growing source of environmental data in the construction products market, and are increasingly being used for (1) environmental performance assessment of buildings and (2) product comparison for procurement decisions during the later stages of building design. An obstacle to identifying and purchasing lower embodied carbon products is a lack of data quality and the transparency of EPDs. However, EPDs vary widely in their data quality and specificity, which can lead to inaccurate and misleading comparisons. A new method is presented to account quantitatively for estimates of variation in underlying data specificity in EPDs to enable fairer comparisons between EPDs and to motivate the reporting of actual variability and uncertainty in EPDs. The application of this approach can help purchasers to assess EPDs quantitatively. Practice relevance Life-cycle assessments (LCAs) and LCA data can be used within the construction sector to evaluate buildings and to assist in design, specification and procurement decision-making. A new method is presented to support the assessment of comparability of functionally equivalent materials and products during the specification and procurement stage. Given the known variation and lack of precision within EPDs, this method provides quantitative metrics that correlate to a qualitative interpretation of EPD precision. This method can be used by anyone who is using EPD data to make product comparisons at the specification and procurement stage: • It provides more confidence in choosing low-carbon material or product options when comparing between functionally equivalent options. • It can incentivize product manufacturers and LCA practitioners to improve data quality and transparently report known variation in their EPDs. • It may also motivate manufacturers to reduce GHGs from their products and processes.

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Section: Barriers To Effective Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodied carbon in construction materials: a framework for quantifying data quality in EPDs

Waldman¹,

Huang

Simonen

2020

Buildings and Cities

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“…Authors who assessed consistency across different key aspects of the published product category rules (PCRs), EPDs, and other schemes (with different requirements) state a lack of consistency (Subramanian et al 2012), or show substantial variations within two versions of an EPD (Ingwersen and Stevenson 2012;Modahl et al 2012). Whereas Subramanian et al (2012) indicate the disparities between PCRs ranging from broad differences in scope, system boundaries and impacts addressed (e.g.…”

Section: Abstract Building Certification Environmental Product Declmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental product declarations entering the building sector: critical reflections based on 5 to 10 years experience in different European countries

Passer

Lasvaux

Allacker

et al. 2015

Int J Life Cycle Assess

136

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Purpose Growing awareness of the environmental performance of construction products and buildings brings about the need for a suitable method to assess their environmental performance. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has become a widely recognised and accepted method to assess the burdens and impacts throughout the life cycle. This LCA-based information may be in the form of environmental product declarations (EPD) or product environmental footprints (PEF), based on reliable and verifiable information. All of these use LCA to quantify and report several environmental impact categories and may also provide additional information. To better understand on the one hand existing EPD programmes (EN 15804) for each country and on the other the recent developments in terms of EU reference document (e.g. PEF), the authors decided to write this review paper based on the outcomes of the EPD workshop that was held prior to SB13 Graz conference. Methods This paper presents the state of the art in LCA and an overview of the EPD programmes in five European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland) based on the workshop in the first part and a comprehensive description and comparison of the PEF method and EN 15804 in the second part. In the last part, a general conclusion will wrap up the findings and results will provide a further outlook on future activities. Results and discussion The high number of EPD programmes underlines the fact that there is obviously a demand for assessments of the environmental performance of construction materials. In the comparison between and experiences of the different countries, it can be seen that more similarities than differences exist. A comparison between PEF and EPD shows Responsible editor:

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“…However, PCRs have many of the same shortcomings found in other LCA reports. Preparing an EPD from a PCR still presents technical challenges similar to a conventional LCA (Mukherjee and Dylla 2017), and EPD results show great sensitivity to modelling decisions (Modahl et al 2013) and the choice of PCR (Subramanian et al 2012).…”

Section: Introduction and Current Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

LCA capability roadmap—product system model description and revision

Kuczenski

Marvuglia

Astudillo

et al. 2018

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Life cycle assessment (LCA) practitioners face many challenges in their efforts to describe, share, review, and revise their product system models; and to reproduce the models and results of others. Current Life cycle inventory modeling techniques have weaknesses in the areas of describing model structure; documenting the use of proxy or non-ideal data; specifying allocation; and including modeler's observations and assumptions-all affecting how the study is interpreted and limiting the reuse of models. Moreover, LCA software systems manage modeling information in different and sometimes non-compatible ways. Practitioners must also deal with licensing, privacy / confidentiality of data, and other issues around data access which impact how a model can be shared. The aim of this SETAC North America working group is to define a roadmap of the technical advances needed to achieve easier LCA model sharing and improve replicability of LCA results among different users in a way that is independent of the LCA software used to compute the results and does not infringe on any licensing restrictions or confidentiality requirements.

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Comparison of two versions of an EPD, using generic and specific data for the foreground system, and some methodological implications

Cited by 35 publications

References 12 publications

Embodied carbon in construction materials: a framework for quantifying data quality in EPDs

Embodied carbon in construction materials: a framework for quantifying data quality in EPDs

Environmental product declarations entering the building sector: critical reflections based on 5 to 10 years experience in different European countries

LCA capability roadmap—product system model description and revision

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