Environmental product declaration: a study of construction materials

Abstract

Nowadays, the protection of the environment is getting more and more important both for the manufacturers and the consumers. There is a strong awareness in terms of environmental issues, discussions on this subject, questions about the role of citizens in this context and a turn towards a more aware way of consumption and a preference to environmental friendly products manufactured and marketed. This means that purchasing decisions have to be influenced by increasing environmental awareness and sustainable consumption by consumers. That also encourages companies to adopt an environmental orientation in their business strategies. As part of this growing environmental awareness, there is the need for clarification of concepts and the establishment of objective criteria, data collection, calculation methodology and objectives to justify the choice of materials used in the construction sector in order to optimize and to increase the sense of responsibility. The first part of the thesis presents and explains several concepts, methodologies and regulations that historically evolved and led to the present documents needed for the proof of the environmental impact of a product. These documents are called Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). In this work is highlighted the importance of the EPDs, the standardization of criteria, the whole process of organization of an EPD to the stage of evaluation and publication and indicates all regulatory framework. After the explanation of the basic concepts, a case study on ceramic tiles is presented. In this part, the objective is to analyze the information that EPDs provide, how the values they provide can be read, the differences in the procedures used and finally the way that EPDs could help the construction industry. For this purpose, two official EPDs from different EPD systems (Catalonia and Germany) and one Portuguese study (unofficial EPD) are analyzed. At the end of this work it is concluded that EPDs are an essential tool of a product’s environmental information, which comes in response to environmental demands that the market gradually has imposed. Each organization must comply with regulatory procedures and establish procedures for the manufacturing of a product and its whole life cycle that are responsible and environmental friendly.