What Is An
Environmental Declaration (EPD)?
An Environmental Product Declaration is a standardised document providing detailed, quantifiable information on the environmental impact of a product throughout its lifecycle. Using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, an EPD examines stages from raw material extraction to manufacturing, distribution, installation, use, and end-of-life disposal or recycling. For professionals and companies in construction and architecture, EPDs offer a transparent, data-driven way to understand and assess a product's environmental footprint, allowing them to make more informed choices that align with sustainability goals.
Why Are EPDs Needed?
EPDs are essential in today’s push toward more sustainable construction practices. With building projects contributing significantly to global environmental impacts, there’s a growing demand to assess and reduce the ecological footprint of materials used in construction.
Importance of EPDs
in the Construction Industry
In the construction industry, lighting products with EPDs provide crucial insights into their environmental impact across the lifecycle. Here’s why EPDs are particularly important in lighting:
- Energy Consumption and Emissions: Lighting accounts for a significant portion of a building's operational energy use. EPDs show how lighting products, especially LEDs and other efficient solutions, perform in terms of energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, and lifecycle impacts.
- Material and Resource Use: The materials used in lighting fixtures, such as metals and electronics, have environmental impacts that EPDs quantify. This helps architects and designers make more sustainable choices, reducing the demand for non-renewable resources.
- End-of-Life Management: Many lighting products contain components that require careful disposal or recycling. EPDs highlight these considerations, informing end-of-life decisions that support circular economy principles.
- Supporting Green Certifications: EPDs contribute to achieving LEED, BREEAM, and other green building certifications, which consider the environmental impact of lighting systems and fixtures.
Our Commitment
At Orlight, sustainability is ingrained throughout the lifecycle of our products, reflecting our deep commitment to environmental stewardship. The Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is central to this commitment, which serves as a cornerstone of transparency and accountability in our operations.
Currently, we are engaged in rigorous assessments for EPD certification, meticulously evaluating and transparently disclosing the environmental impacts associated with our lighting solutions. This comprehensive evaluation spans from the sourcing of raw materials to the management of end-of-life disposal, ensuring that every stage of our product’s lifecycle is scrutinised for its environmental footprint.
Our assessments adhere to stringent international testing and rating standards, with verification processes overseen by the international EPD system. Through these efforts, we aim not only to provide accurate information to our customers, but also to set a standard for sustainable practices within our industry.
Who We Work With
Centre Testing International (CTI) is a leading global provider of testing, inspection, certification, and consulting services. Diversified across a broad spectrum of industries and product categories, CTI employs over 13,000 professionals operating a vast network of approximately 160 laboratories and more than 260 offices in over 90 cities worldwide.
With a commitment to excellence and innovation, CTI offers comprehensive solutions that ensure the highest standards of quality, safety, and compliance. The organization leverages state-of-the-art technology and a team of highly skilled experts to deliver accurate and reliable results, supporting clients in meeting regulatory requirements and enhancing their market competitiveness.
CTI’s extensive expertise and dedication to integrity have established it as a trusted partner in the international testing and certification landscape.
CTI undertakes the confirmation of all pertinent general information, encompassing but not limited to programme details, company data, and product specifications, through close collaboration with ORLIGHT and its factories. The selection of the appropriate Product Category Rules (PCR) is meticulously performed based on ORLIGHT’s product category. Within the framework of the International EPD System, the principal PCR for construction products is in strict adherence to the European standard EN 15804:2012+A2:2019/AC:20212.
To streamline the data collection process, each factory is provided with a detailed and comprehensive information collection checklist. This checklist is designed to gather crucial product information spanning all stages of the product lifecycle, including the product stage, construction stage, use stage, and end-of-life stage. This ensures that factories can efficiently compile the necessary data.
Following data collection, thorough data modelling and analysis are conducted to produce a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) report. This report is based on the meticulously gathered data and serves as the foundation for the subsequent stages. The stringent assessment maintains a tolerance of only +/- 10%, which is significantly more precise compared to the +/- 50% tolerance common among other suppliers.
The Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) report is then prepared, drawing from the LCA report. The EPD report is compiled in strict accordance with the established EPD reporting format, guaranteeing consistency and compliance with relevant standards.
All databases and reports are submitted to an approved individual verifier for thorough examination. Any nonconformities identified by the verifier are promptly addressed and rectified through a collaborative effort involving CTI, ORLIGHT, and its factories.
Upon successful verification, all mandatory documentation is subsequently registered with the International EPD System, ensuring their availability within the EPD portal. EPD International (environdec.com) This structured and methodical approach ensures the accuracy and reliability of the Environmental Product Declarations and guarantees compliance with international standards, thereby upholding the highest levels of quality and integrity in the creation and registration of EPDs.
