LCA and EPD: how a material's climate footprint is documented
From lifecycle assessment to environmental product declaration
When a building's climate footprint is to be documented, two abbreviations quickly appear: LCA and EPD. They're closely related, but cover two different things—one looks at the whole building, the other at the individual material.
§LCA — the entire building's life cycle
LCA stands for Life Cycle Assessment. It is a comprehensive account of the building's climate and environmental impact throughout its entire lifetime — typically calculated over a period of 50 years — from the extraction and production of materials, through construction and operation, to when the building is finally demolished or recycled. Since 2023, it has been a requirement in the Building Regulations that building owners prepare an LCA for all new construction.
§EPD — the individual product's declaration
An EPD an environmental product declaration (Environmental Product Declaration) is documentation of a single material or product's environmental properties — from raw material extraction through production and transport to use and disposal. An EPD is based on a life cycle analysis of precisely that one product and the result is expressed in fixed comparable numbers for the different phases in the product's lifetime.
§How the nature of the material determines the method
A building's total LCA is assembled from data for all the materials included in the construction — and that data comes from the materials' EPDs. The more precise and specific the EPD is for the individual product, the more accurate the building's total climate account becomes. Weak or generic data gives an imprecise total picture, even though the calculation method is the same.
§Four types of EPD — from coarse to precise
| Type | How precise is it? |
|---|---|
| Generic EPD | Coarse industry averages, least precise |
| Industry EPD | Average for a group of producers in the same industry |
| Project-specific EPD | Developed for a specific project's specific conditions |
| Product-specific EPD | Documents the climate footprint for one specific product from one specific manufacturer — most accurate |
§What does it mean for material selection?
When climate requirements must be met, material choice becomes a direct part of the calculation. Two seemingly identical products can have very different climate footprints depending on raw materials, production method, and transport distance—and that's precisely what a good EPD makes visible. Tradespeople and buyers who know the difference between a generic and a product-specific EPD can therefore contribute concretely to a project meeting its climate requirements.
- 01Ask for product-specific EPDs when choosing materials for climate-controlled projects
- 02Remember that transport distance is part of the material's total climate footprint
- 03An LCA for the entire building is only as good as the EPD data it's built on
- 04Documentation, not assumptions, is what counts in climate accounting
In other words, LCA and EPD are two sides of the same thing: the EPD gives each building material its climate account, while the LCA brings all the building materials together into the building's total footprint. The better the data, the more accurate the figure for which the building will ultimately be accountable.
§Why it is not only a task for advisors
It may sound like this only happens at the desk with engineers and architects, but the decisions spread throughout the entire building process. A buyer choosing between two suppliers of the same material, a foreman planning which batch of concrete to use where, or a carpenter suggesting an alternative material — all help determine which EPD data actually go into the finished climate account. Understanding that there is a difference between generic and product-specific figures makes it possible to ask the right questions to the supplier before a material is ordered.