Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) provide quantitative information on the environmental impacts of a product throughout its life cycle. They are known as “Eco-labels” type III. The information contained in an EPD is based on the life cycle analysis (LCA) of a material or system: energy consumption; resource depletion; water consumption; solid waste; climate change; atmospheric acidification; air and water pollution; ozone layer depletion; photochemical ozone formation.

The DAPcons® are based on various ISO guidelines and have been developed since 2000. In Europe, based on the mandate of the European Commission for the development of standards in the field of sustainability in construction works, they have been developed in countries such as France, Germany, Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and Spain. In other countries outside the EU, such as the USA, Canada, Japan and Korea.

There are also sectoral DAPcons®, which show the average values of a product with similar functional characteristics. These will be particularly useful for the technician in the first stage of a project where the environmental impact of a typical product needs to be known without knowing the exact model or brand.

To become a member you need to register as a company and fill in the requested data on the DAPcons platform.

Once approved and accepted, the invoice will be sent for payment of the annual membership fee and the company will become part of the Programme and enjoy all the rights and benefits that it entails.

See section “Programme membership”.

For company registration and registration of new DAPcons® you can access the following video where the steps to follow are detailed and that you can share with the companies in case of doubts:

How to register on the DAPconstrucción® Operator Programme for Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) digital platform.

Below are the links to the website where you can find information on fees and procedures for the registration of a DAP in the DAPconstrucción programme:

1. Joining the See section “Joining the programme”.
2. Make the request for registration of the DAPcons® (to register a new DAPcons®, the company must be previously registered and when registering the request for a new DAPcons® you are asked to indicate the name of the consultant, who must be previously registered). See section “Register a product in the DAPconstrucción® programme”.
3. Recruitment of a Programme See section “Programme advisors and partners/Verifiers”.

The estimated time may vary depending on the type of product and the CPR assigned.

The environmental product declaration is valid for 5 years. To reward the loyalty of our customers and their trust in the DAPcons® programme, we offer those companies that wish to continue with us a discount on the fee when renewing their type III ecolabel (DAPcons®).

For more information contact sostenible@cateb.cat

The current EPDs from the date of the company’s membership.

For more information contact sostenible@cateb.cat

Verifiers must have a scientific or technical degree or equivalent and demonstrate three years of experience in related sectors, in addition to specific knowledge and experience in the construction sector, its products and related environmental aspects; construction-related products and processes; application of LCA methodology; relevant LCA legislation; regulatory framework relating to ecolabels and the development of CPRs; Type III ecolabelling programme.

For more details please refer to point 3.1.5 of the PGI.

To be accredited as a verifier, it is necessary to fill in the Form and provide all the information required.

Open source:

• On the programme’s website
• On the website of the ECOPlatform
• In public OpenDAP
• In databases established by agreement with other programmes for measurements, BIM, LCA, etc.

Privately:

• You will find them in the private area of the digital platform (accessing with your username and password).

Environmental Product Declarations, known as EPDs, are Type III eco-labels, i.e. based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and certified by an independent third party.

These documents include, in a standardised format, quantified and verified information on:

• resource consumption, including energy, water, renewable and non-renewable resources,
• emissions to air, discharges to water and land, as well as hazardous and non-hazardous waste

EPDs are the most valuable document to know the true environmental performance of a material, and they are a fundamental tool to achieve a more sustainable building. This is recognised and rewarded by all building certification tools and labels.

There are three different types of eco-labels (I, II and III), all of which are voluntary. Depending on the use we want to make of the ecolabel or the information we want to obtain, we will choose one or the other.

TYPE I.

These labels are based on the ISO 14024:1999 standard, with a third party defining the requirements to be met according to the product category. In order to obtain a verdict, it compares similar products or services with each other, looking at simple characteristics, and an external body certifies the award of this ecolabel.

TYPE II.

They are based on the ISO 14021 standard and, unlike the previous one, do not require an external body to obtain them. It is the company itself that, through the use of texts or symbols, highlights an environmental quality of a certain product or service. Characteristics such as whether it is “recyclable” or “reusable” are some of the aspects that tend to be highlighted.

TYPE III.

This section includes Environmental Product Declarations, also known as EPDs. They follow the ISO 14025 standard and are drawn up by an external body, such as AENOR, for example. Unlike type I, these declarations take quantitative data into account, i.e. environmental aspects are quantified throughout the entire life cycle of a product (from the extraction of raw materials to the end of the product’s useful life).

The main similarity is that the three types of ecolabels are voluntary, and it is up to the company in question whether it wishes to obtain them or not. As for their differences, while Type I and Type III require an external body to obtain them, Type II labels depend on the company itself. This aspect usually influences the level of credibility, as the consumer tends to think that the data will be more reliable if they come from an external entity.

The benefit of Type III eco-labels over the two previous ones lies in their level of detail, as they provide data referring to environmental aspects throughout the life cycle of a product. It is not a certification that you are awarded if you reach a minimum number of points, but an informative document with data that the consumer can compare with another product in the same category that has a Type III ecolabel.

The Product Category Rules (PCR) set out the requirements and guidelines to be followed in developing the environmental product declaration, including the corresponding life cycle analysis study, which may vary according to, for example, the function of the product, the incorporation of recycled material or the complexity of the production process.

For more information see section “Official documents”.

In the following section “Official Documents” you can find the CPRs that have been developed and are current in the DAPconstrucción® programme.  If you   have   any   questions   or   queries   about   the   CPR   application,   please   contact sostenible@cateb.cat.

Only if it has been declared in France and the product trade marketing/selling is only in France.

An EPD can be made in which the average environmental performance of a number of products is declared. When this product for which the EPD is to be made does not have a CPR (international standard, CPR in the operator programme or CPR in another operator programme), CPR 100 of the EPD-Construction programme can be used. This CPR 100 establishes the need for the variability included in the indicators to be no more than 10%. For products that are not included in the tables with average data, as many annexes as necessary can be included to also provide the results segregated by product groupings that comply with this limitation. The tables included in the annexes appear in the paper DAPcons but not in the digitised data, because they are not part of the verified EPD. This implies that the data in the annex will not appear in the digitised databases. Only in the paper DAPcons.

Criteria for declaring a DAPcons, provided a specific CPR standard does not state otherwise:

• Publish the average result (as long as they meet the criteria of 10% difference in GWP and for stages A1-A3). In this option, the average content shall be declared in the content
• Publish a more representative product/series (as long as they meet the criteria of 10% difference in GWP and for stages A1-A3) as usual, otherwise separate into different The serial product is the product that the EPD owner considers most representative.
• For each indicator, declare the highest impact result of the covered products (i.e. the results of a “worst case scenario”, which can be the results of one or several of the covered products). Under this option, the content declaration shall include the lowest amounts of recycled and biogenic content of the covered products and their packaging, respectively, and the information on environmental and hazardous properties of substances shall reflect the highest proportion and share of hazardous substances contained in any of the covered products.

The first two options are only possible if none of the reported environmental performance indicators (or only the results of the environmental impact indicators, for some RCPs) differ by more than 10% between any of the included products. The third option is also possible if the variations are greater than 10%. For the worst case scenario, the EPD will not include more than one set of results. This change is made to improve the automatic readability of the EPD to facilitate the digitisation of the data. To allow for this change, the cost per EPD record in the DAPconstruction® programme is significantly reduced.

See the previous section for the options for declaring an EPD.

It is indicated in point 5.2 of the General Programme Instruction (PGI):

“A Sectoral EPDcons® is considered when an EPD has been requested by a group/association/cluster of manufacturers and communicates the average performance of a product of different manufacturers belonging to the same sector and that these General Instructions of the EPDconstruction® Programme represent at least 60% of the market of the geographical area considered. The Sectoral EPD must declare the geographical area, the percentage of representativeness of the average product declared in relation to the whole market in this area, as well as the participating manufacturers and the production centres considered in the EPD”.