UK cement industry publishes Environmental Product Declaration
Industry builds on its sustainability credentials with EPD that declares its life-cycle environmental impact
THE UK cement industry is building on its long-established sustainability credentials having published its first Environmental Product Declaration (EPD).
The EPD declares the industry’s life-cycle environmental impact and covers 100% of domestically produced cement. It builds upon 10 years of sustainability information published in annual sustainability performance reports.
Dr Pal Chana (pictured), executive director of MPA Cement, said: ‘This is a great milestone for the UK cement industry and makes it a front-runner in the construction products sector. Our new EPD demonstrates that we are meeting UK stakeholder and supply chain expectations by providing a detailed level of environmental footprint information.
‘However, whilst this EPD is a significant step in environmental transparency, it is important that the information is used correctly: we need to compare the role of building functional units in the performance over the whole life of the building, and not make comparisons at the individual construction component level.’
Institut Bauen und Umwelt – the Institute for Construction and Environment, Europe’s leading EPD programme operator, has independently verified and approved the UK average Portland cement EPD.
The publication of the UK average cement EPD is now paving the way for production of EPDs for concrete products. The product category rules, which provide the calculation method for an EPD, are being finalized for concrete products. With these rules and this new cement EPD, the concrete industry will also be able to provide designers, contractors and clients with concrete EPD information to use in their project environmental assessments.
