An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a standardized, independently verified document that reports the environmental impacts of a product over its life cycle, most often its global warming potential, or embodied carbon.
EPDs are prepared under international standards, including ISO 14025, following product category rules that set what is measured and how. Most construction EPDs cover the “cradle to gate” stages: raw materials, transport and manufacturing. Product-specific EPDs describe one plant’s product; industry-wide EPDs describe an average.
Using EPDs on parking projects
- Concrete. The largest source of embodied carbon in most garages. Ready-mix and precast producers can provide mix-specific EPDs. See SCMs.
- Steel. Reinforcing bar, post-tensioning strand and structural steel. See structural steel.
- Specifications. Require EPDs with submittals, and set global warming potential limits where appropriate.
- Policy. Some public buyers, such as under California’s Buy Clean program, require EPDs and set carbon limits for certain materials.
- Certification. Rating systems, including LEED and Parksmart, credit EPDs.
The Parkonomics view
You cannot reduce what you do not measure. EPDs make embodied carbon a number on a submittal, which is where it can finally be compared and controlled.
Related terms: Embodied Carbon, SCMs, Carbon Footprint, Concrete, Sustainability