First things first: what is an EPD?
An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a standardised, externally verified declaration of a product’s environmental performance. In short: it makes the environmental impact of a building material or product transparent according to uniform rules that apply across the industry.
For architects and engineering consultants, EPDs are an important tool for sustainable decisions because they provide reliable data on a product’s life cycle assessment: from manufacture through use to recycling. They are also essential for the environmental assessment of buildings, for example as part of a life cycle assessment (LCA). In Germany, both manufacturer-specific EPDs and generic life cycle assessment data are publicly available in Ökobaudat (a government database of environmental information on building products) and are updated regularly.
So EPDs are not a nice-to-have but a must
Demand for environmental product declarations has risen sharply in recent years. Why?
- Because EPDs are the lowest common denominator for providing architecture practices with comparable environmental information.
- Because design practices like to rely on EPDs to make well-founded decisions in the jungle of environmental labels.
No wonder, then, that over 85 per cent of building product manufacturers in the DGNB/BPIE stocktake from November 2024 (by the German Sustainable Building Council and the Buildings Performance Institute Europe) say that they produce EPDs mainly because customers ask for them. They are particularly relevant for building certifications in which environmental indicators play a role.
And things are moving on:
- The new Construction Products Regulation (EU) 2024/3110 requires manufacturers to gradually also state the global warming potential of their products in the declaration of performance and conformity. The obligation applies to each product family as soon as its new harmonised standard becomes binding. The calculation follows EN 15804, the same standard as for an EPD.1
- From 1 January 2028, the global warming potential over the life cycle must be calculated and stated in the energy performance certificate for new buildings with more than 1,000 square metres of usable floor area, and from 2030 for all new buildings. This has been set out since July 2026 in the Gebäudemodernisierungsgesetz (GModG, the German Building Modernisation Act), formerly the GEG (Building Energy Act), which implements the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.2, 3
This does not make the EPD mandatory, but its data becomes the basis for mandatory information. Conversations with our hej.build Architecture Advisory Board confirm this trend: today, EPDs are a decisive criterion for assessing building products in the early design stage. Large architecture practices such as HPP Architekten (Düsseldorf) or Lendager (Copenhagen) already ask for this information as standard, either in the first conversation or online.
Is it already worth manufacturers producing EPDs now?
According to the DGNB and BPIE stocktake, there are three key benefits:
- 27 per cent of manufacturers observe higher demand for products that have an EPD, while 44 per cent see no change. The study explicitly does not prove a direct link.
- 75 per cent actively use the life cycle assessment data for their environmental communication. This makes it easier to position sustainable products.
- And actually the most encouraging aspect: over 58 per cent of manufacturers use the results internally, and 32 per cent have already initiated changes in production on this basis. In some cases, potential material savings and ways of reducing CO₂ only become visible through systematic data collection.
Even so, far from all products have an EPD. Why?
- High costs: according to the stocktake, an EPD costs €8,000 to €12,000 on average, and over €20,000 for one in six manufacturers surveyed. The largest share goes to life cycle assessment service providers.
- Missing internal data: many manufacturers have problems collecting the necessary data internally. This drags the processes out and costs even more money.
- Long processing times: bottlenecks at verification bodies can delay the process by months.
So what can manufacturers do now?
Keep at it and develop a medium-term strategy: environmental product declarations should be produced at least for the most important products. At the same time, it is important to optimise internal processes so that relevant data is recorded in a standardised way and doesn’t have to be laboriously pieced together first. And speaking of standardisation: despite high initial investment, more and more companies are turning to automated solutions. 40 per cent of the manufacturers surveyed already use EPD tools to reduce the effort and make it easier to calculate the life cycle assessment data. In the long term, these digital tools lower the cost per product and make the whole process simpler.
Artificial intelligence will also play an important role in future. Start-ups such as Emidat are already working on solutions intended to greatly simplify producing EPDs, taking the next step towards standardised and more easily accessible environmental information for building products.
Industry-wide EPD or individual declaration?
And there is one more important point we’d like to leave you with: as demand for environmental product declarations rises, a clear shift is emerging, away from general industry-wide EPDs towards company-specific declarations. While an industry-wide EPD only gives average values for a material or product, individual EPDs allow more precise differentiation on sustainability-related product properties. Manufacturers who want to position themselves clearly in the market need reliable, specific environmental indicators that they don’t share with competitors in their industry.
But it is not only demand that is rising; the rules for environmental claims are also getting stricter: since 27 September 2026, the Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb (UWG, the German Act against Unfair Competition) has prohibited, among other things, generic environmental claims without evidence. Our article »Green Claims« covers this in more detail. If you base your claims on the data in an EPD, you communicate in a specific and verifiable way. For manufacturers who already rely on reliable data today, this becomes a real competitive advantage.
By the way, we offer individual training series for marketing and sales teams to build know-how around sustainability communication and the use of environmental indicators. Whether it’s basic knowledge, product-specific requirements or the connection with building certifications: we’re happy to adapt the content flexibly to your needs. If you’re interested, write to us.
* How was the study conducted? The study combines a survey of building product manufacturers, an evaluation of Ökobaudat, an analysis of relevant regulations and interviews with experts. In July 2024, around 200 companies were surveyed and 59 responded, mainly large companies. The aim was to gather reliable data on the challenges, costs and opportunities of EPDs.
