Abstract
This paper identifies the need for Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) to provide End of Life (EoL) and Module D data for products for use in building level Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Although the provision of data for EN 15804 Modules A4-D is not currently mandatory for EPD, many currently report some or all of these. This paper provides an overview of the existing reporting of the end of life (Modules C1-4) and Module D and the types of scenarios used in European EPD. Using examples from existing EPD for two product groups, this paper examines the variation in approaches to scenarios for Module C and D. It explores the difficulties brought by this variation and discusses benefits from using default national scenarios at end of life, but additionally considers the advantages of providing alternative EoL scenarios for products to promote the circular economy.
Highlights
Life cycle assessment (LCA), as defined in ISO 14044 (1) addresses “the environmental aspects and potential environmental impacts throughout a product's life cycle from raw material acquisition through production, use, end-of-life treatment, recycling and final disposal.” For construction products, the European Standardisation body, CEN’s Technical Committee TC350 responsible for Sustainable Construction has developed a framework and standards to address the assessment of environmental aspects and impacts for both products and construction works
Results of the Analysis The analysis showed that 72% of these Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) report Module C1 (Demolition/deconstruction), 77% report Module C2 (Transport to waste processing), 76% report Module C3 (Recovery), 82% report module C4 and 51% report Module D
The authors have provided several new approaches to classifying the scenarios reported in EPD, and identified that a significant proportion of EN 15804 EPD already report Modules C1-C4 and Module D
Summary
The life cycle for construction works and for construction products are set out in the framework standard, (2) and used in the building level environmental assessment standard, (3) and the construction product level environmental assessment standard, (4) This framework clearly separates the end of life stage from the other life cycle stages, and breaks it down into four information modules, C1 (deconstruction), C2 (transport to waste processing), C3 (waste processing for reuse, recovery and recycling), and C4 (Disposal). Another module, Module D is included to show the benefits and loads beyond the system boundary from the net output of recovered material, fuel and energy from the product system. The current amendment of this standard, EN 15804+FprA2:2019 (5) will require Module C and D to be provided for all products except a very small number of exceptions, it does not describe any scenarios which should be assessed for products, other than the requirement already set out in EN
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