Wood Products Environmental Product Declarations (EPD)
The Atlantic Canadian forest based product producers have always been committed to the sustainability of it’s products. In support of this commitment, a third party verified EPD and Transparency briefs – that describe the environmental performance of many of the products we produce. This tool was developed by the American and Canadian Wood Councils and the individual EPD’s represent North American averages.
Transparency Briefs
The Transparency Briefs (found in the right side-bar) summarize the most important data within the EPD. It provides all critical information about a products composition, life-cycle environmental impacts, material content, water and energy usage, and other product information, all in a format standardized by the third-party verifier, UL Environment. The intent of the Transparency Brief is to make it easier for users to see key product details and allow them to focus on just the environmental data.
Third-party verified
All North American wood industry EPDs shared here have been independently third-party verified by UL Environment (ULE), a business unit of Underwriters Laboratories. ULE verifies that EPDs conform to the requirements of ISO 14025, the global standard governing EPDs. Their review looks at both the underlying life-cycle assessments as well as the data reported in the EPDs.
Cradle-to-Gate
The wood products industry has many manufacturers located across North America. Because these EPDs are intended to characterize the environmental performance of individual products, their scope covers “cradle-to-gate,” or from raw material harvest through when the finished product is ready to leave the manufacturing facility. As there are too many possible uses for each product after manufacturing to make reasonable assumptions about their use-phase impacts, these EPDs do not cover the gate-to-grave phase of their life cycle.
Who Uses EPDs?
Whether you are a builder, designer, or consumer, you want to know about the products you specify and use. We invite you to download these EPDs for your use and future reference.