How to perform an EPD
Development
of an EPD is a relatively costly and complex task and it is important to have
management and marketing people involved in the process. Access to supporting
tools as well as to personal support has also been identified as a critical
issue.
Working
with EPDs in a company requires involvement of different categories of people.
Environmental controllers and specialists have a key role since they often are
best suited to coordinate the work. This must however be done in close
cooperation with management functions. Product development functions provide
inventory data for material content and manufacturing processes. Supply
management often needs to assist in collecting inventory data for e.g. supplied components.
Marketing people and other users of the EPD must consider how to implement the
EPD in their sales strategies.
The
person(s) conducting the LCA/EPD need a high level of environmental competence
as well as an understanding of the analyzed product. It could be cost efficient
to engage an LCA/EPD specialist if EPD development will not be a regular
activity. Additionally, it is relevant to give basic information about the LCA/EPD
concepts to all involved. One important experience is that it is both difficult
and time consuming to collect inventory data from suppliers.
In
the case a PSR has to be developed you have to calculate with a rather time- and
resource consuming work. In the process of developing PSR it is extremely
important to engage other parties, such as branch organizations and competitors.
When many people are involved it is natural that things will take time, but this
involvement is necessary in order to get a PSR that is firmly established in the
branch. Unfortunately the interest from others may be quite little in some cases
even if you have informed all relevant parties. The only you can do then is to
carry out the PSR from you own perspective. But this should really be an
exception.
Since
the number of products in a company in general is large it is not realistic to
always develop and maintain EPDs for all products. Instead the approach could be
to develop EPDs for high volume and/or high strategic products. Some type
of complementary and more limited environmental claims (type
II , according to ISO) could then be developed for the remaining part
of the product mix.
To
develop an EPD is as stated earlier rather time consuming. First of all you have
to develop a PSR if there is no PSR for your product. This will take 40-80
working-hours. The calendar time for developing a PSR is rather difficult to
estimate since often there are many parties involved, but you may say 2-8
months. Then you have to carry out an LCA which will take typically 50-200
actual working-hours and 2-6 months in calendar time. Finishing the EPD will
take another 20-80 working-hours and 1-2 months in calendar time.
Business value
It is good business to communicate the environmental impact of your product
since it shows that you are working with product related environmental issues
and this leads to reduced environmental risks of the product for your customer.
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