The growing interest in establishing the environmental impact of new projects and gaining environmental accreditation is shown by the number of times the six WoodSolutions Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) have been downloaded.
Invaluable tools in calculating the environmental impact of a project, environmental product declarations (EPDs) are independently verified documents that contain specific environmental data, for improved decision making.
Typically, an EPD includes data on multiple environmental impacts, including contributions to climate change (carbon footprint), air, water and soil pollution and resource depletion.
EPDs are important sources of credible information for specifiers and designers for developing an LCA (life cycle analysis) of a project or structure to understand what needs to be done to quantifiably reduce their project’s environmental impact.
The six WoodSolutions EPDs include Softwood Timber, Hardwood Timber, Particleboard, Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF), Plywood and Glue Laminated Timber (Glulam). These are all available for free download from the WoodSolutions website.
“This level of interest in comprehensive and independently verified environmental information is extremely encouraging. It goes well beyond my expectations when we started EPD Australasia five years ago. Great to see FWPA through WoodSolutions as an early adopter rewarded for their transparency and leadership in providing robust environmental information in these EPDs,” said Barbara Nebel, CEO of thinkstep-anz, the company that prepared the EPDs.
Users of EPDs include people involved in the building design and construction industry wishing to obtain higher Green Star points from the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) or recognition from the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia.
“Providing EPDs is an important part of our role in supporting the increased use of wood and wood products,” said Eileen Newbury, WoodSolutions National Program Manager, “wood products have a great environmental story and EPDs are helping us tell it with independent data.”