Environmental Product Declaration

Yeah, that's exactly right.

So if you take something like EPDs, environmental product declarations, that are mandated of companies, particularly in certain sectors and jurisdictions like Europe, etc., also in the building sector more globally.

If you take applications like reporting under the greenhouse gas protocol, which is widely embraced by many companies on a voluntary basis, these are applications where the provision of this kind of primary data becomes an enabler to scale.

Right.

So this solution is a way to supply that primary data into the value chains so that you don't have to make an estimate or a guess on what are your suppliers, suppliers, emissions or your customers, customers, emissions, etc., you now have an information mechanism that provides that to you so that you can report your direct emissions, your energy-related so-called scope 2 emissions, your upstream and downstream emissions.

You can report these kinds of things in the context of primary data.

Ditto with your EPDs, your environmental product declarations.

Suddenly you have great data to report them.

And that brings us on to our next winner, Tender Builder Tycoon.

They've put their boats through the most stringent evaluation, Life Cycle Assessment, LCA, and Environmental Product Declarations, or EPD.

These tools provide a credible, independently verified baseline for a vessel's environmental impact, a genuine starting point to work from.

And rather than simply claiming a boat is green, they measure its impact across its entire life cycle with an EPD independently verified by Rena.

For procurement teams, this means evaluating not only cost and performance, but also understanding where materials come from and how manufacturers source them.

Environmental product declarations, EPDs, health product declarations, HPDs, and third-party certifications provide important transparency that allows buyers to compare products using credible, verifiable data rather than greenwashing marketing claims.

Circular procurement starts with choosing materials designed to remain valuable long before they're ever installed.

Will the materials deliver long-term performance? Replacing products less often reduces waste and helps extend the useful life of materials and spaces.

Some manufacturers are struggling with it because they might have a really complex product, and, uh, there's a lot to learn.

And if we look at EPDs, the envi- environmental product declarations that, that, uh, more and more architects are asking for from manufacturers, some manufacturers will have them, and, you know, understand the, the h- the, the purpose of them.

Others are very new to it and are like, "I d- how do we, how do we go about declaring our, uh, our product's footprint?" So, so you see companies at different stages of that learning, um, journey, I guess.

Yeah.

... up and be common practice.

Yeah, and the regulations are not there.

You know, if this was regulated, which w- we're probably gonna see more and more in the, in, in Europe, I think France actually is leading the way, then it would be a different matter in the UK, I think, if, if architects had to compare EPDs for, for all materials.

But then also, you know, that is so time c- time-consuming.

But then bigger items like ASTM.

You know, sustainability, for example, you know, people are being asked for an EPD.

They're like, hey, I don't know what this thing is.

And so the environmental product declaration generator tool, that's one of the bigger projects that we're working on right now.

We have our education page.

We have webinars from many, many years ago, things like that.

So if there's something that you can't find, or if it's like, Hey, you know, is there, you know, a paper on, you know, what is, what is, I don't know, an EPD, for example, washing glass or do's and don'ts just email us.

So we'll happily send that to you.

Certifications and transparency documents aren't the same thing.

Environmental product declarations, or EPDs, provide data about a product's environmental impacts.

Health product declarations, or HPDs, disclose the ingredients used within products and their potential impacts on human health.

They're informational.

So look for these kinds of products when you're making selections for your home.

So how can you understand the carbon content of the materials that you're looking at? Well, an environmental product declaration or an EPD is a document that's produced by a manufacturer that reports the environmental impact of a product across its life cycle, including its embodied carbon content.

Now, EPDs are verified against international standards and they allow you to compare the carbon content of similar products from different suppliers.

For most homeowners, the EPD level of detail is something that you delegate to your design team or to a sustainability consultant.

I do know that many in the undercover architect community that are like me, total nerds, love to dig into all of the detail.

So you now know where to find this information.

You want to specify lower carbon concrete, specify lower carbon or green steel and other metals if possible.

Consider where you can source recycled materials if your builder is open to using them.

It's MPGs or you're buying something.

Where did it come from? What's the LCA of it or the EPD, the Environmental Product Declaration of the Product Declaration? it could keep going deeper and deeper.

It can understand the full ecological footprint, the full life cycle assessment, but it can go into that human to humane side.

Is that humane? Will that cause harm? Will it accelerate Gottfried's hope? How do you calculate hope, health on planet Earth? How do you do it for the building? How do you do it for the ecosystems? How do you do it for your loved ones? How do you do it for your mission, your soul, your spirit? It's endless, but the insight, the direction, the knowledge, the steering, the capabilities...

We have to shift the economy to dealing with the fires, the floods, the oceans, the coral reefs, the air, the health issues.

Everything's moving.

So the more you can learn about this, EPDs, LCAs, hardening fires, but also what Charlie's doing, the AI agents.

You got to be on it, man.