What is an Environmental Product Declaration?
Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) provide quantified, verified and objective information about the impact of a product or service on the environment. The gathered information is based on well-defined parameters. The whole life cycle of a product its raw material, its production, its application, and its disposal is to be considered.
Especially in the building sector, EPDs are increasingly used by architects and property developers in order to prove and guarantee a sustainable way of building when participating in tenders. However, EPDs are also issued for other products used in different sectors.
The international standard ISO 14020 distinguishes between three types of EPDs. Type III stands for the most extensive level of them, since it is verified by a third independent authority and therefore, provides the maximum of objectivity as well as neutrality.
The drawing up of an EPD follows international and technical regulations which are determined in so called Product Category
Rules (PCRs). These PCRs define the content and the outline of the EPD for specific groups of products. Therefore, PCRs have a normative effect.
It is necessary that the EPD contains particular parameters to clearly define the eco-balance of a product. The life cycle inventory analysis describes the product's consumption of resources such as energy, water and renewable and nonrenewable resources. It also specifies the emissions to air, water and into the earth. The estimation of the effect is based on the results of the life cycle inventory analysis and provides specific information about the environmental impact, e.g. the greenhouse effect, the destruction of the ozone layer, acidification or the depletion of fossil and mineral resources. In addition,
further indicators are listed such as the kind and the amount of waste produced.
What is HPL?
HPL are decorative High Pressure Laminates meeting the demands of the EN 438. HPL consist of impregnated layers of paper pressed together under high-pressure and heat.
HPL not only stand out because of their apparently endless varieties of design and possibilities to be applied, but also because of their outstanding product features. Thus, HPL are among other things long-lasting, surface-harden, light- and heat-proof
(up to 160 °C), hygienic, easy to clean and food-safe. Furthermore, HPL are not sensitive to scratches, impact and dirt.
Those technical characteristics are complemented by the fact that the possibilities for designing this surface material are nearly unlimited. It is available in all kinds of colours, patterns and surface textures.
In the EPD at hand, the ICDLI distinguishes between two types of HPL: thin-HPL (here, 0.8 mm are taken as an example) and compact-HPL (here, 8 mm are taken as an example). The former needs to be used together with a carrier material due to its thinness. Compact-HPL can be used in combination with a carrier material but is commonly used as a self-supporting material.
Compact-HPL can be applied for example, to walls, by using visible or concealed fixing.
Why to issue an Environmental Product Declaration?
Being an excellent and long-lasting surface-material, HPL are suitable for many applications. Not only is HPL applied as a finish to furniture or countertops in kitchens, but it is also used in the building sector for the interior work of a building as well as the facade cladding.
HPL has been known for its outstanding environmental characteristics since the life cycle analysis of 1998 emphasized this. In anticipation of the increasing demand on the part of architects and property developers, in 2012 the ICDLI decided to have an
EPD verified according to the newest European guidelines to make the sustainability of HPL more transparent. In 2017 the EPD
was once again renewed.
In doing so, it was important to the ICDLI to reach using the type III declaration the highest possible level of objectivity concerning the collected data, which is requested and analysed by an independent third authority.
The special characteristic of the ICDLI's EPD is that it is a European average declaration. This means that the analysed data was collected from HPL-manufacturers from all over Europe and does not only represent a product of a single producer. The companies, which provided information about their products, cover almost 60% of the European market for thin-HPL (< 2 mm)
Is it possible to compare Environmental Product Declarations with each other?
