You can download a sample EPD generated with One Click LCA Pre-verified EPD Generator at the end of this article.

1. The EN 15804+A2 amendment and what it means for businesses

In the eight years since its inception, the standard has been amended twice. The much-needed first amendment, or EN 15804+A1, made it mandatory to apply a common set of characterisation factors, based on the so-called CML methodology developed by the University of Leiden. This ensured a reasonable level of comparability across environmental impacts in most impact categories for EPDs.

Largely owing to the quality of the standards, ISO also decided to create a mirror standard of its own for EPDs. The International Standard ISO 21930 Sustainability in buildings and civil engineering works — Core rules for environmental product declarations of construction products and services is basically mirroring the most important provisions of EN 15804+A1. But EN 15804+A2 no longer complies with ISO 21930:2017 in terms of the impact categories it reports on. This creates a potential trade barrier, unless ISO 21930 is harmonized.

“EN 15804+A2 no longer complies with ISO 21930:2017 in terms of the impact categories it reports on. This creates a potential trade barrier, unless ISO 21930 is harmonized.”

The prevalence and quality of EPDs complying with EN 15804 has not gone unnoticed on the market. All public procurement bodies in the EU and EEA are bound to use EPDs complying with this standard, and they are also recognized by LEED and BREEAM, among other market-based systems. In the North American context, the standard is sometimes used with the TRACI 2.1 impact category reporting, a methodology developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

However, since then, the European Commission has developed a new approach to quantifying the environmental performance of products called Product Environmental Footprint (PEF). To align the environmental reporting approaches, the European Commission issued an amendment mandate to require the revision of EN 15804 to align with the PEF methodology. The irony in this is that, unlike EPDs, the PEF methodology has not taken off on the marketplace.

However, the mandate was completed, and the result of the work is EN 15804:2012+A2:2019 Sustainability of construction works. Environmental product declarations. Core rules for the product category of construction products, or to be short, EN 15804+A2.

Amendment 2 was approved by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) on 21 July 2019. Every organisation issuing EPDs in compliance with EN 15804 needs to get their systems and processes aligned with the amendment within three years of its issuance. Unlike with standard revisions, the old version cannot be used after this date. But until July 2022 most people are expected to continue to use EN15804+A1 based data.

“Every organisation issuing EPDs in compliance with EN 15804 needs to get their systems and processes aligned with the amendment within three years of its issuance. Unlike with standard revisions, the unamended version cannot be used after this date.”

2. Biogenic carbon emissions and storage handling are more transparent and fully revamped

In EN 15804+A2, the climate impact category is split into four different reported categories. The previous single Global Warming Potential category is no longer provided. The new categories are:

• Climate change – total (sum of subcategories)
• Climate change – fossil
• Climate change – biogenic
• Climate change – LULUC (land use and land use changes)

Reporting the biogenic carbon storage contained in the product and its accompanying packaging is required. However, if biogenic carbon containing materials are less than 5 % of the product and packaging mass, the reporting for the product is optional.

3. Three times more impact categories, twice the fun

The EN 15804+A2 does away with the former environmental impact categories, and requires no less than 13 core environmental impact indicators to be reported, and provides 6 additional environmental impact indicators (optional for the EPD, mandatory for the project report). The North American TRACI 2.1. itself reports yet another 6 impact indicators.

All of which works out to 49 reporting categories. If that sounds like a lot, it is. The total number of reported categories is more than is needed, and all of it may not be useful, but considering the effort you put in to develop the EPDs in the first place, why take any chances of being caught short or having to redo it all in a year’s time?

4. All products must declare end of life and a more complex recycling benefits calculation is required

At the same time, the rules for calculating the benefits for module D after end-of-life is now defined in a significantly more complex manner. The new calculation rules follow the PEF methodology. The calculation rules are provided in annex D of EN 15804+A2.

The end-of-life scenarios can be a novelty and create a lot of work in documentation and declaration for manufacturers and consultants who did not have to work with them before

5. All Product Category Rules need to be revised

Not all program operators are yet ready for this, and some have part of their PCRs based on A1 and part of them based on A2. So, which PCR should you choose for your EPD?

If you only have an A1-based PCR, you may risk having to redo your EPD sooner than you’d like. But not all product categories have an EN 15804+A2-compliant PCR available.

6. Data must be available in International Reference Life Cycle Data System format

Is the EN15804+A2 a change for the better?  And how do I deal with it in practise?

To show what the outcome looks like in practise, we created a sample EPD for Rearden Steel, a fictive Pennsylvania-based manufacturer for their new product innovation, Rearden Metal

The EPD was generated with the One Click LCA Pre-Verified EPD Generator, which generates the EPD with all requisite data automatically. You can adjust your logo and product visualisation placement, and if you do not have business in North America, you can also remove the TRACI 2.1 impact categories for example. Come and create yours today.

If you have any questions, we’re happy to answer you at epd@bionova.fi.