EPD Data: From Compliance to Competitive Advantage
Most manufacturers order their first EPD because someone asked for one - a customer, a tender or a regulation. EPD Hub's webinar From compliance to competitive advantage: what your EPD data can really do argued that the verified data inside the document is worth more than the document itself.
Host Andrea Nyilas, EPD Hub's marketing manager, gave four reasons to treat an EPD as more than a box to tick: market access, winning tenders, better product decisions and claims backed by third-party verification.
External verifier Ipek Göktan Kalkas explained the regulations driving demand. EPD Hub managing director Josh Morshead showed how EPD results feed product development and sales. Jorge Esqueda Querol of Master Builders Solutions shared how his team uses LCA and EPD data to sell lower-carbon concrete in Latin America.
Regulation is turning EPD data from optional to required
Verified environmental data has moved from voluntary, to requested by buyers, to expected in tenders and green building schemes. Ipek's point was that it is now becoming a legal requirement. Three EU regulations use different formats, but all of them draw on data an EPD already holds.
Regulation | Scope | What it asks for | Where an EPD helps |
CPR - Construction Products Regulation | Construction products sold in the EU, phased in by product type | A digital product passport (DPP) behind a QR code, now including environmental performance - at least the carbon footprint | Construction EPDs and the CPR rest on the same standard, EN 15804 |
CBAM - Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism | Carbon-intensive goods imported into the EU - so exporters outside Europe, not only EU importers | Verified embedded emissions; without them, worst-case default values apply, adding cost and putting market access at risk | An EPD already collects the inputs: raw materials, energy, transport |
ESPR - Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation | The DPP framework for products beyond construction, rolled out product group by product group | Passport data on recycled content, environmental footprint, durability, repairability and end of life | The environmental footprint is what an EPD measures |
Josh called the good news harmonisation. EN 15804 is the Europe-wide product category rule (PCR), so values in today's EPD can feed tomorrow's DPP. An EPD, a DPP and a CBAM report are different formats for the same underlying data.
The methods are not identical - a CBAM declaration follows its own methodology. But a manufacturer with a verified EPD has already collected and checked the data, and can reuse it as each regulation arrives.
How soon to act depends on the product. Ipek's order of urgency: CBAM goods first, where manufacturers are already behind, then construction products, then textiles. Europe leads, but other markets, including North America and the UK, are moving the same way.
The first EPD is a baseline, not a finish line
An EPD starts on the factory floor. Raw materials, electricity, machinery and logistics - diesel by road, heavy fuel oil by sea, electricity by rail - become the inputs to a life cycle assessment (LCA) model.
Josh described that model as a digital twin of production. It can be built in full LCA modelling software, which takes training, or in newer EPD generator tools designed to produce many EPDs at lower cost with less expertise.
The result reports a long list of impact categories, from global warming potential (GWP) to ozone depletion, human toxicity and eutrophication. The DPP and CBAM will start with GWP alone, taken from that list.
Why an EPD rather than a standalone LCA report? An LCA's scope varies - cradle to gate in one study, gate to gate in another. An EPD follows a PCR that fixes which life-cycle stages are counted, so two EPDs compare like for like - which is why architects use them to choose products.
The first result is often disappointing. Products were designed around two measures - highest quality at lowest cost - and carbon is a new third one. Josh compared it to stepping on the scales at the start of a diet: the first reading is the baseline.
What the baseline gives you is a map of hotspots. Is the impact coming from raw materials, from fossil-based electricity, or from supply chains that cross the world before materials reach the factory door?
The first EPD sets the baseline; each update shows whether the changes worked and where to look next.
Manufacturers then act - solar panels on the roof, suppliers closer to home, new materials - and update the EPD to show the outcome. An EPD is typically valid for five years, but in steel, cement and chemicals EPD Hub sees updates every one to two years.
On the end goal, Josh was blunt. Beating a competitor's number wins today's tender, but the competitor will respond - the real target is a GWP of zero.
The short-term payoff is commercial. Josh cited figures, sourced in the webinar slides, showing EPDs lift tender win rates by around 40% and sustainable products command around a 15% price premium over generic ones.
In practice: lower-carbon concrete in Latin America
Master Builders Solutions supplies admixture technology that improves concrete performance and helps cut CO2 emissions. In Latin America, Jorge's team helps producers optimise concrete mixes for both performance and sustainability.
Jorge drew a contrast with Europe, where regulation tends to drive change. In Latin America, market demand arrives first - through green building certification, differentiation and lower risk. Different route, same destination: producers who use credible data before regulation requires it gain the advantage earlier.
The best mix is not the one with the least cement. It is the one with the lowest environmental impact that still meets strength, productivity and cost targets.
In a conceptual case, lowering cement content, adding pozzolan and using admixtures cut GWP by about 30% at mix level. Both mixes were modelled with the same methodology and system boundaries, and other environmental indicators improved too.
A second conceptual case in Panama scaled this to a whole building. LEED v5 makes an embodied carbon assessment of the main materials (stages A1-A3) mandatory, where LEED v4 left it optional. Jorge's team linked Revit quantities, organised by building element, directly to the LCA workflow to cut manual work.
With the same geometry and concrete volumes, the low-carbon mixes cut the project's footprint by about 29% - roughly 64 tonnes CO2e - and lowered total cost by about US$61,800.
Jorge's wider lesson: environmental data creates value only when it changes decisions, and each team reads it differently. Engineering looks at performance and durability, sustainability at GWP and verification, procurement at cost and risk, and sales at market access and specification.
That works when the producer owns the whole workflow - data, LCA modelling, verification, publication through EPD Hub and commercial use. The EPD then becomes an internal capability rather than a file, and in Jorge's view, the concrete of the future will be specified with data.
Same standards, a faster workflow
If verification is faster and cheaper, what gets left out? Josh's answer started with equivalence. Every accredited program operator verifies to the same standards and accreditation frameworks, EPD Hub follows the same PCRs, and its EPDs go to ECO Portal like anyone else's.
The difference is the workflow. Files, versions and the verifier's feedback sit on one digital platform instead of long email chains.
Before the verifier opens a submission, AI-powered pre-checks scan it against the PCR and standard. Each part of the report gets a red, amber or green flag, so the independent verifier knows where to focus - and keeps the methodology review, the judgement and the approval decision.
Josh explained why both are needed. Automated checks handle volume and fine detail consistently, but struggle with unusual assumptions, supply-chain anomalies and non-standard data sources. A human verifier can judge whether an assumption is acceptable for that sector.
Moving routine checks earlier is where the time is saved. Standard verification takes four weeks and fast-track two, from complete data submission to a verified, published EPD - against timelines often measured in months. Fewer billable hours also mean lower prices.
The Q&A also covered reuse across program operators. Adapting an EPD for another operator, such as the Dutch NMD, means comparing both operators' general programme instructions (GPI) and PCRs. Mutual recognition agreements and ECO Platform's common rules can let one EPD be published in several systems.
Where to start
Ipek's advice holds whatever your regulatory timeline:
Know your product, your markets and the requirements that apply to them.
Organise your data so it can be reused across regulations.
Check whether your products are on the CBAM list.
Check what your customers and supply chain already require.
Check when DPP rules reach your product category - they arrive product by product.
Get the data ready before choosing software - the calculations come second.
A first EPD covers the hardest part - collecting and verifying the data - for every regulation that follows. EPD Hub's team takes technical questions on verification requirements, PCRs and national recognition through the contact email on its website.
