ENVIRONMENTAL ESSENTIALS: What are environmental product declarations (EPDs)?

Joseph Shacat (NAPA)

What are environmental product declarations (EPDs)?

The Canadian government is committed to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40 to 45 per cent by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050,1 and Ontario has a similar plan.2 While governments and other agencies develop more specific emissions reduction plans to support their net-zero goals, there is growing attention on embodied carbon emissions, which are the GHG emissions associated with producing, constructing, and maintaining buildings and infrastructure. One of the best ways to quantify embodied carbon emissions is with environmental product declarations (EPDs). An EPD is a report that quantifies the environmental impacts associated with manufacturing a product. EPDs for asphalt mixtures have a cradle-to-gate scope, which means they cover activities such as extracting and processing raw materials, transporting those materials to the asphalt plant, and asphalt plant operations.

EPDs are independently verified to ensure they meet the requirements of the Product Category Rules (PCR) for Asphalt Mixtures, 3 ensuring consistency and comparability between EPDs for asphalt mixtures. EPDs for different product types, such as asphalt and concrete, are not directly comparable because they comply with different PCRs that have not been harmonized.

EPDs report information about a variety of environmental impacts and resource-use indicators. The most commonly used indicator is the global warming potential (GWP) which is a measure of a product’s carbon footprint. Other parameters of interest include smog-forming emissions and acid rain-forming emissions.

Agencies can use EPDs to estimate the organization’s emissions inventory and develop strategies to reduce emissions. For example, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) found that production of asphalt pavement materials was that agency’s largest source of GHG emissions during the period 2016 to 2019 (it should be noted that vehicle fuel consumption, by far the largest source of roadway emissions, was not included in ODOT’s emissions inventory).4

Agencies can also use EPDs as a data source for cradle-tograve life cycle assessments (LCAs), allowing the agency to evaluate and compare pavement materials and designs that have different performance expectations (for example, comparing the life cycle environmental impacts of a perpetual pavement design to a conventional pavement design). The State of Oregon recently passed House Bill 4139 which requires ODOT to collect EPDs from paving contractors, conduct LCAs on a select set of projects, and devise strategies to reduce emissions. 5

Agencies are not the only beneficiaries of EPDs. Companies can use them to benchmark their emissions, identify hot spots to help focus their attention, develop emissions reduction strategies, and track progress toward company goals. With EPDs, companies can reliably calculate emissions reductions associated with the use of recycled materials, changes to supply chain logistics such as aggregate haul distance, process improvements at the plant, and more. Most companies find that they can reduce cost and emissions at the same time by implementing energy efficiency measures and using more recycled materials.

NAPA’s Emerald Eco-Label software allows asphalt mix producers in the United States to easily develop plant-specific, mix-specific EPDs. Currently, the tool is not available for plants located in Canada, but the PCR for Asphalt Mixtures does include plants located Canada. To learn more about EPDs, visit AsphaltPavement.org/EPD .

Joseph Shacat is Director, Sustainable Pavements, for the National Asphalt Pavement Association.

1 https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/ climate-plan/net-zero-emissions-2050.html

2 https://www.ontario.ca/page/climate-change

3 https://www.asphaltpavement.org/uploads/documents/EPD_Program/NAPA_ PCR_AsphaltMixtures_v2.pdf

4 https://www.oregon.gov/odot/climate/Documents/GHG_Report_FINAL.pdf

5 https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2022R1/Measures/Overview/HB4139