Linda Löwhagen
Technical specialist Environment, Asphalt, NCC Industry
Making more informed choices with EPDs
Now you can buy aggregates and asphalt mixtures with known environmental impact, linked to the specific site where they are produced. This provides you with a basis for more accurate environmental and climate calculations.
Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) are demanded for all types of constructions, in order to measure a project's environmental impact and to achieve sustainability goals. Today, it is still customary to use generic values. But we are not satisfied with this.
With the help of a certified method of developing EPDs, linked to the site from which the product originates, we are making the EPDs' content more specific in a way that is not possible when only using generic data. We do this in order to:
- Give you, as our customer, a more transparent, fact-based and precise basis for your environmental and climate calculations
- Identify actions giving measurable, reduced environmental impact at a specific site
- Improve our own processes and find best practice in the company, in order to reduce our own activities' environmental footprint
- Be able to offer our customers the sector's most sustainable solutions for stone materials and asphalt mixtures
An EPD is more than a climate declaration
An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) presents the environmental performance of a product or service from a life cycle perspective, in a transparent, objective and standardized way. An EPD does not just include the climate declaration, reporting greenhouse gas emissions. It also includes data on the product's entire environmental impact, from eutrophication and acidification, to the consumption of resources. Example of aspects included in our calculations for a site are explosives, fuels, electricity, bitumen, transports and impact on the soil and aquatic environment.
A certified process for the creation of EPDs makes us proud pioneers in the construction industry. It is good to be able to offer products that are the result of active efforts to map and reduce emissions in our part of the value chainPatrik Österberg and Linda Löwhagen, EPD process managers, NCC Industry
Certified process gives more accurate values
Our accurate process to create a site- and product specific EPD is certified by a third party, who also performs annual audits of the process. Each EPD you receive from us is based on supplier's data, in order to ensure traceability throughout the supply chain for our products. Together with the suppliers, and you as the customer, we can also develop each other's processes in order to reduce the environmental impact throughout the value chain.
For you, this entails:
- More informed choices, with the help of detailed site- and product specific EPDs, minimizing use of generic data
- Known environmental data for all your inputs for concrete, paving, road constructions and so on
- Clear product documentation contributing to higher points in environmental certifications, such as BREEAM and LEED
- Current values that are updated regularly
- Third-party guarantee that you can use in your own sustainability communication
A natural element in achieving climate neutrality
Working actively with life cycle analyses and EPDs to develop our own processes is a natural element of NCC's efforts to achieve climate neutral activities. Since the life cycle analysis is based on specific site activities, we can analyze exactly which processes and production steps having the greatest environmental impact and direct our efforts towards this. The work also shows the differences between our sites, which makes it possible to share valuable knowledge and best practice within the company. Through process improvements, in both the short and long term, we can continue to offer you the industry's most sustainable solutions within stone materials and asphalt mixtures.
Our EPDs are published at environdec.com.
In Norway, a different framework is used, and their EPDs are published at epd-norge.no.
