Product Category Rules (PCRs) and
Environment Product Declarations (EPDs)

What

Those seeking to develop an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) will be required to perform a third-party reviewed life cycle assessment (LCA) that will estimate the environmental impacts of their product.

The process of developing the LCA to satisfy the EPD requirement may be governed by a Product Category Rule (PCR) which has been developed to provide product-specific guidance as to what assumptions are appropriate, such as what data must be collected, what can be excluded, and what impacts should be assessed, etc.

As a final step in the process, the EPD that was guided by the PCR and was based on the LCA must also be third-party reviewed. The resulting EPD is usually published by an EPD registrar such as Environdec that will make the EPD accessible on a website that it maintains. That EPD may need to be updated if the life cycle changes significantly or after the EPD expires.

Why

Stakeholders in the building sector have developed a building certification process called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) which now includes credit for those that have an EPD performed for materials and products in the building. This has driven many manufacturers to pursue an EPD.

Those with products in other sectors may seek an EPD as a potential marketplace advantage. This practice is becoming more common in the European Union (EU).

How

The process of performing the LCA is really not any different when the ultimate plan is to produce an EPD. The EPD itself is just a consumer-friendly version of the LCA - significantly shorter and often with a marketing flavor to it.

Some PCRs may be very specific as to the format of the EPD. Most versions have tabular results of environmental impacts by lifecycle stage and may comment on key aspects of the sensitivity analysis.