UK: The Minerals Product Association (MPA) has published its first Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). The EPD declares the UK cement industry's life cycle environmental impact and covers 100% of domestically produced cement. It builds on 10 years of sustainability information published in annual sustainability performance reports.
"Our new EPD demonstrates that we are meeting UK stakeholder and supply chain expectations by providing a detailed level of environmental footprint information," said Executive Director MPA Cement, Pal Chana.
The EPD is a standardised way of quantifying the embodied environmental impacts of a product or system over its lifetime. The information declared includes data on the environmental impacts of raw materials acquisition, energy use and efficiency, content of materials and chemical substances, emissions to air, soil and water and waste generation. Institut Bauen und Umwelt, the Institute for Construction and Environment, Europe's leading EPD programme operator, has independently verified and approved the UK Average Portland Cement EPD.
The publication of the UK average cement EPD is will allow the future production of EPDs for concrete products. The concrete industry will also be able to provide designers, contractors and clients with concrete EPD information to use in their project environmental assessment.