About Eric
Eric works at the intersection of sustainability, regulation, and business strategy, helping manufacturers navigate the evolving landscape of EPDs and LCAs. Having spoken with hundreds of teams across North America, brings a deep understanding of what drives ROI, what regulators are asking for, and how companies can stay ahead with smart, scalable approaches to environmental reporting.
Recent Articles
Concrete and Asphalt Innovation Act Playbook
The Concrete and Asphalt Innovation Act now moving through Congress could reshape how every U.S. pavement plant wins public work. The bill ties federal grants and incentives to proof of lower embodied carbon, spelling opportunity for manufacturers who already gather airtight LCA data—and headaches for those still hunting spreadsheets. Here is what matters, why EPDs sit center-stage, and how to move before the frenzy starts.
Next New Jersey Manufacturing Program: Tax Credits Meet EPD Strategy
New Jersey just opened a $500 million pot of tax credits for manufacturers who invest at least $10 million and create twenty new full-time jobs. One catch: applicants must clear “minimum environmental and sustainability standards,” with the first $100 million reserved for clean-energy product makers (NJ Governor, 2025). For factories that already track carbon and resource flows for Environmental Product Declarations, the paperwork edge could translate into real dollars—fast.
New York’s Embodied Carbon Trio
A pair of twin bills—A8456 in the Assembly and S7998 in the Senate—would bake a 15 percent embodied-carbon cut into the New York State Building Code by 2030. Projects over 25 000 ft² get three routes to comply: keep and reuse almost half the existing structure, hit carbon caps on cement, steel, rebar, timber and friends, or run a whole-building life cycle assessment that proves you beat a modeled baseline (NY S7998, 2025). For manufacturers, the common denominator is trustworthy, facility-specific EPD data. No numbers, no ticket to the Empire State’s next construction boom.
Massachusetts Targets Embodied Carbon in State Projects
Massachusetts is poised to make every cubic yard of concrete, ton of rebar, and square-foot of timber count toward its net-zero ambition. A twin bill, S.2127 / H.3337, would force state-funded projects to cut embodied carbon by 30 percent—quickly separating suppliers who can prove low-impact products from those who cannot.
Maine’s HP 1087: Recycling Bill Manufacturers Should Track
Construction and demolition debris already dwarfs household trash, clocking in at 600 million tons nationwide in 2018 (EPA, 2024). Maine’s HP 1087—filed as LD 1633—tries to flip that waste pile into a supply chain asset by fast-tracking "construction materials reclamation facilities" and setting a 25 percent landfill-cut goal by 2036 (Maine Legislature, 2025). The bill fizzled in committee this spring, yet its language sketches a playbook other New England states are now copying. Ignore it and you might miss tomorrow’s spec requirements.
Hawaii HR 184: What Demolition Waste Rules Mean for Suppliers
Hawaii just told its Department of Health to assemble a Demolition Waste Reduction Working Group. That sounds bureaucratic, yet it could reshape how every screw, panel, and sealant gets specified on island projects. If your product ends up in C&D debris, the new playbook will affect your margins sooner than you think.
SB 755: California’s New Climate Check for State Contractors
Most manufacturers breathed a sigh of relief when Buy Clean only covered four materials. SB 755 erases that comfort zone: every company selling **anything** to a contractor with a California state contract above $5 million will soon need to feed their customer reliable greenhouse-gas numbers. Blow the deadline and your product may vanish from bid lists.
International EPD System: A Manufacturer’s Field Guide
Choosing the right program operator can feel like trying to pick a smartphone plan—everyone promises coverage "everywhere" but the fine print decides whether you spend weeks chasing signatures or drop your EPD on a specifier’s desk before the bid window closes.
GlobalEPD: Spain’s Gate to ECO Platform
Choosing a Program Operator can feel like picking teams at recess—slow play means lost projects. If your specifiers sit in Europe or Latin America, GlobalEPD from AENOR may be the fast lane. We unpack its scale, perks, and watch-outs so you can decide in minutes, not months.
EPDItaly: Fast-Growing Operator Under the ICMQ Banner
Choosing a program operator can feel like picking a phone plan—fine print everywhere, real costs hidden. If you ship building products into the EU, EPDItaly (run by certification body ICMQ) deserves a closer look. Its library cracked 540 published declarations last summer and keeps climbing, yet the process stays refreshingly lean. Here’s what manufacturers need to know before they click “submit.”
EPD-Norge: Nordic-built credibility for your next EPD
Need an Environmental Product Declaration that wins points in Norway, satisfies BREEAM-NOR, and still speaks fluent EN 15804 to the rest of Europe? The Norwegian EPD Foundation—recently rebranded online as EPD-Global—offers one of the continent’s most recognised program operators, logging more than 8,600 declarations by mid-2025 (EPD-Norge, 2025).
CBAM (EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism): What Importers Must Know Now
Border taxes on carbon are no longer a Brussels thought experiment. The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is live, reports are already due, and full cash payments start January 1 2026. If your mill, quarry, or panel line feeds projects in Europe, CBAM will rewrite your pricing math.
Buy Clean California Act: EPD Keys to Winning Bids
California is tightening the screws on embodied-carbon. From 1 January 2025, structural steel, rebar, flat glass, and insulation supplied to any state-funded project must carry a facility-specific, third-party verified EPD that beats brand-new global-warming-potential (GWP) limits. Miss the mark and your product is simply invisible at bid time.
Getting Your EPD Written Into Project Specs
Specification writers move fast. Miss their window and your product sits on the sidelines until the next project cycle. With public agencies like Caltrans now demanding EPD submittals for asphalt and concrete bids (Caltrans, 2025) and LEED v5 making embodied-carbon accounting a prerequisite (USGBC, 2025), the spec section is turning into a carbon passport check. Here is how manufacturers can land in the right paragraph—early, clearly, and irresistibly.
Environmental Product Declarations, Demystified for Manufacturers
Specifiers keep asking for EPDs, regulators keep hinting at them, and your sales team keeps forwarding frantic emails. Yet the three-letter acronym still feels like alphabet soup. Here is the short, jargon-free guide that turns the acronym into a practical tool for winning more bids — without adding an extra gray hair.
Crack the ROI Code: Your EPD Calculator
An Environmental Product Declaration may feel like another line on the compliance checklist, until you run the numbers. Add faster spec wins, bigger project pipelines, and touch-free access to low-carbon tenders, and the payback gets eye-watering quick. Here is a blueprint for an ROI calculator that lets any manufacturer prove, in cells not slogans, why an EPD prints money.
What Does an EPD Really Cost?
Finance teams want a crisp number; sustainability teams reply with "it depends." Both are right. The sticker price of an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) usually lands somewhere between a decent sedan and a fully loaded pickup. Yet the true cost—and the true value—hinges on data readiness, product complexity, and the hours your engineers no longer burn in spreadsheet purgatory.
Allocating Impacts for Near-Twin Product Variants
Tweaking a pigment, trimming a fastener count, or swapping a recycled resin grade often leaves you with two SKUs that look identical on a spec sheet. Yet an Environmental Product Declaration demands one clear set of numbers. Handle the math wrong and you risk delays, higher fees, or a skeptical verifier.
Pick the Right PCR Every Time
Choose the wrong Product Category Rule and your EPD can skid off the track before it even starts. The right one unlocks credible carbon numbers, smoother third-party reviews, and faster market access. Here’s how technical teams zero in on the perfect rulebook—without drowning in acronyms.
PEF vs EPD: aligning now saves rework later
European buyers will soon ask for Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) numbers alongside or even instead of traditional EN 15804 EPDs. The two frameworks share DNA but differ on impact categories, modelling choices, and data granularity. Manufacturers that map the gaps today avoid duplicate LCAs tomorrow and stay ready for looming EU green-claims rules.
EPD Cost in 2025: Expect About $15k–$50k
Sticker-shock headlines jump from $8k quotes to $60k horror stories. Adjusting the best available 2017 survey for inflation and adding fresh operator data, the realistic 2025 price band for a fully verified Environmental Product Declaration now sits around USD $15,000 to $50,000 per product.
Upstream Data: The Hidden Fuel of Reliable EPDs
Module A1, the upstream slice of an Environmental Product Declaration, often carries three-quarters of a building product’s embodied carbon, yet many teams still model it with decade-old generic averages. That gap can cost bids, credibility, and CO₂. Here is how to close it without drowning in spreadsheets.
One-Click EPD Generators: Gadget or Game Changer?
“EPD generator” gets tossed around like a magic wand. Press start, out pops a certified declaration, at least that’s the sales pitch. In reality, software automation trims some clicks but leaves the heaviest lift untouched: hunting, cleaning, and formatting every scrap of production data. Here’s what that means for manufacturers racing to win specs and meet market rules without drowning in spreadsheets.
GPP Rules That Demand Your Product’s EPD
Public buyers are tightening the screws: no verified Environmental Product Declaration, no seat at the table. From Brussels to Sacramento, tenders now spell out "Type III EPD required" next to price and delivery terms. Miss that line and your bid lands in the recycle bin before anyone looks at your engineering specs.
ISO 14025 & 21930: Your Type III Declaration GPS
Stuck between acronyms and auditors? ISO 14025 and ISO 21930 tell you exactly how to turn raw LCA data into a Type III Environmental Product Declaration that buyers trust—and specifiers require.
LEED Certification Explained For Product Manufacturers
Architects ask for LEED points on nearly every mid-to-large project. If your materials cannot help them score, someone else’s will. Here is the back-story, the rulebook, and the specific doors EPDs open.
Module B: The Use Phase Carbon Hot Zone
Most EPD chats orbit raw materials, yet for many products the bigger climate bill arrives after the ribbon-cutting. Module B captures every kilowatt, filter swap, and late-night maintenance call across decades of service life. Nail this slice of the LCA and specifiers see a product that keeps emissions low long after installation.
IBU: Europe’s Workhorse Program Operator for EPDs
Need an Environmental Product Declaration that sails through European tenders? The Institut Bauen und Umwelt e.V. (IBU) hosts more than 4,700 EPDs and saw 390,000 downloads last year alone, making it the busiest gatekeeper for EN 15804 data. Here is what manufacturers should know before choosing IBU as their publishing home.
Prioritize EPDs By ROI, Not Guesswork
EPDs pay for themselves when they unlock specifications you keep losing today. The trick is to let public bid data show you where the money is, then focus your first EPDs on the SKUs that sit in the fattest part of those opportunities. No spreadsheets full of hope. Just a repeatable, numbers-first playbook.
What Is a Product Category Rule (PCR)?
If an EPD is a finished movie, a Product Category Rule is the script. It tells every producer of a given product type how to collect data, model impacts, and format results so audiences can compare two films fairly. Skip the script and you get chaos that slows bids and confuses specifiers. Follow it and your EPD lands clean, credible, and ready for the shortlist.
Master Modules A4 and A5 for Leaner EPDs
Months of plant data finally sit polished in a spreadsheet, yet your verifier still needs truck routes, pallet weights, and tape counts. These details live in Modules A4 and A5. Ignore them and you risk watching a lean factory footprint swell at the very last hurdle.
Whole-Life Carbon: Turning EN 15978 Numbers into Sales Power
Many building owners now require whole-life-carbon calculations before they sign a purchase order. If your product’s EPD cannot feed those calculators straight out of the box, specifiers swipe left. Here is how EN 15978 and the humble EPD data line up—plus why manufacturers who connect the dots close deals faster.
Functional Unit and Reference Service Life: How to Keep Comparisons Fair
If you have ever argued about who makes the “greener” concrete panel, odds are someone’s functional unit was mismatched or their reference service life came from wishful thinking. Nail both and your EPD tells a story buyers can trust—muff either and you invite an RFP black hole.
BREEAM Materials Credits: What Manufacturers Should Know
Getting your product specified on BREEAM-certified projects can open doors to high-value work—especially in Europe, where BREEAM is a top-tier sustainability benchmark. One of the most straightforward ways to make your product irresistible to BREEAM-focused specifiers? Help project teams secure Materials credits. These credits aren't just nice-to-haves. They're a direct line to being shortlisted for jobs where performance, sustainability, and documentation go hand-in-hand. Here's what manufacturers need to know.
NDA or Not? Navigating Confidentiality in EPD Work
Nobody wants the recipe for their flagship product splashed across an LCA report. Yet an Environmental Product Declaration demands detailed bills of materials, utility usage, and even plant‐level scrap rates. The tension is real: share enough to verify the numbers without giving away the store.
The EPD Pre-Kickoff Checklist
Think of your EPD project like a rocket launch: if the fuel lines (data) clog or the countdown (timeline) drifts, the mission stalls. Use this pre-kickoff checklist to spot gaps early and decide whether to pilot the craft yourself or hire a seasoned ground crew.
Residential EPDs Win Orders Faster
A building material with an Environmental Product Declaration is more than a green badge, it is a sales accelerant. Builders in the single-family and multifamily markets are working to hit tougher energy codes and voluntary labels like LEED for Homes. When every item on the takeoff sheet has to justify its carbon score, a spec without an EPD requirement often stalls. The clock does not stop for price wars, and the first bid that proves both performance and environmental transparency usually walks away with the PO.
