"We need something we can rely on. Something we can believe in. Some common goals we can agree on."
This is how PcP's CTO, Michael Habekost, describes the need for an EPD. Even though Environmental Product Declarations can be difficult and technical to read, they have become a common language for climate footprints.
In just a few years, the EPD has gone from a document discussed only by the largest companies to an integral part of ordinary construction projects. Not because the construction industry needs more paperwork, but because data has become crucial for obtaining reliable, uniform information to compare the environmental impacts of products.
At PcP, the work of obtaining EPDs for up to 90% of their gratings was not a desk exercise. It has become a process that traces back to the company's first safety gratings in the 1970s and has forced the organisation to scrutinise its own figures, supplier data, and assumptions.
"The EPD is difficult to understand,’ says Habekost. ‘But it's important to tell the story."
PcP's work with environmental product declarations began long before 2021.
‘We have been working with strength-to-weight ratios since the first plate grates were manufactured in the 1970s,’ says Michael Habekost. ‘Even back then, being able to use less material without compromising on strength was a competitive parameter.’
Today, we call this resource efficiency. Back then, it was all about design, efficiency and competitiveness. But the logic was the same: less material, less energy consumption and better solutions.
Sustainability was not incorporated into the company as part of a strategic move. It grew out of practice.
‘Back in the 1990s, we were working on switching to green energy,’ says Habekost. ‘We chose to replace all our light bulbs first and then switch to natural gas instead of coal-fired district heating.’
According to him, this is linked to the company's culture. There has never been a big gap between management and production. Decisions about materials and energy consumption have not been isolated in a strategy; they have been part of everyday life.
‘The focus on sustainability came later,’ explains Habekost. ‘But the logic made sense then, and it still does,’ he says. Seen through today's lens, PcP took early steps in the same direction.
The EPD was therefore not the start of sustainability at PcP. It became the documentation of something that was already firmly established.
The EPD may resemble a quality stamp. It is not.
"An EPD is not a certificate in the traditional sense," emphasises Habekost. "It does not say “this product is now sustainable'. It says, 'here is the environmental impact we can document, calculated according to a specific standard, with a fixed system boundary and verified by an independent third party.'"
The difference is crucial.
An EPD does not assess whether the product is good or bad. It simply provides data.
It is similar to the food declaration on the back of a product in the supermarket. It does not tell you whether the product is healthy, but what it contains.
Behind an EPD is always an LCA, or life cycle assessment. An LCA is the actual calculation of a product's environmental impact from raw material extraction to production, disposal and recycling. The difference is that an EPD is the standardised, third-party-verified version of this LCA. You could say that the LCA is the calculation. The EPD is the verified version.
This is an important difference because:
At a time when concepts such as ‘sustainable’ and ‘green’ are becoming more prevalent, transparency is becoming a competitive parameter in its own right. Once the figures are verified, the discussion shifts from opinions to documentation.
This is where the EPD comes into its own. Not as a judge, but as a common point of reference.
Because the EPD had to be usable in real life.
Many companies choose a pragmatic approach and create EPDs for a single product or a few standard products. It is easier, faster and cheaper.
But PcP chose a different approach: instead of documenting a single product, the company decided to cover almost its entire production, in practice, around 90%. Their environmental product declarations are therefore structured into material groups so that underlying products and processes can be accommodated in the same model.
‘So far, we are the only ones who have done this in our industry,’ says Habekost.
PcP chose this approach because its customers work with solutions rather than standard products.
At the same time, the largest part of the climate footprint lies in the raw materials, especially for steel and aluminium. If you only document a narrow part of production and omit processes and materials, you risk giving a misleading picture.
For steel, the paradox is clear.
The material has a long life and can be recycled indefinitely. This is a significant strength. But the manufacturing process itself is energy-intensive.
‘We need to work on the production itself,’ says Habekost. ‘The old coal-fired plants must be replaced by electric furnaces, and it is not enough that they run on electricity. They must use green energy. Wind power, hydropower, etc.’
At the same time, he points to another challenge: we must become better at using the available scrap metal efficiently.
Covering 90% of the range made the process more difficult. But also, more accurate.
The work began by mapping out what actually goes into the products: types of materials, the alloys used, their proportions, and the processes and energy consumption associated with the individual material groups.
It is not simply a matter of multiplying a few transport kilometres by an emission factor.
Data is rarely found in one place. It can be found in purchasing, in production, with team leaders, and in the system built for operations, not for LCA calculations. It requires internal time, coordination, and a model that can handle the task's complexity.
If the model is too simple, the EPD becomes easy. But it also becomes weaker as a basis for decision-making.
One of the most frustrating and instructive challenges in the process was not about a lack of will, effort or data.
It was about timing.
When PcP was one of the first in the industry to obtain EPDs systematically, it turned out to have an unexpected downside.
Midway through the process, the EN 15804 standard was revised from A1 to A2.
During the transition period, A1 and A2 coexisted. But just as PcP was in the midst of the laborious data collection process, A2 became the applicable reference.
The problem?
The most important supplier data had been compiled in accordance with A1. With data from a couple of years ago.
As raw materials account for the majority of the environmental impact, this meant that PcP was left with a foundation that did not fit the calculation framework they were entering.
‘This means that our figures will be significantly higher because they are based on generic data,’ explains Habekost. ‘This means that we do not reap the benefits of PcP's conscious choice of the right suppliers.’
Only in subsequent updates can the more accurate A2 data from suppliers be incorporated. We have recently received this data, and it shows significant improvements.
In this sense, an EPD is a snapshot. It reflects the data and standards that were applicable at the time it was prepared. If upstream data changes, e.g. if suppliers reduce their carbon footprint or switch energy sources, the environmental product declaration must be updated to keep pace. Therefore, working with an LCA is not a static process. It is an ongoing process in which the model is gradually brought into line with actual developments in the value chain.
An EPD is only as accurate as the data on which it is based.
The most valuable effect of the EPD work was not the EPD itself.
It was insight.
When you break down the impacts on materials, processes, resources and transport, it becomes clear where you can improve and where you should not spend time.
For us, it confirmed in particular:
It also provided a better basis for dialogue with designers and contractors, as we can deliver data in a format that aligns with the environmental accounts that are becoming increasingly common.
We expect EPDs to increasingly become an integral part of standard documentation in construction projects – in the same way as we have seen with CE marking (EN 1090) and quality systems.
This will not happen overnight. But when documentation requirements become an integral part of project delivery, EPDs will no longer be a ‘nice to have’. They will become a prerequisite.
And that is precisely why it is important that EPDs also become easier to understand: not less technical, but more transparent. Because if data is to create trust, it must be both verifiable and explainable.
As Habekost sees it, "EPD documentation is there to make sustainability work understandable. But it is not a certificate. You get some properties of a product certified. It is something you have to work on. It is an ongoing process."
