About John
John brings a clear, research-driven perspective on the EPD, LCA and HPD space and keeps a close pulse on environmental trends and standards in North America, helping clients understand where the industry is heading and how to get there.
Recent Articles
Illinois HB 5461: Carbon-Smart Concrete’s Near Miss
The Concrete Carbon Utilization, Reduction, and Removal Breakthrough Act (HB 5461) almost turned Illinois into a test lab for low-carbon concrete. The bill died on January 7, 2025, yet its blueprint of tax credits for Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and performance-based specs is a spoiler trailer for what will almost surely return. Concrete producers who wait for the sequel risk falling behind when the curtain rises again.
Illinois HB 3141 reshapes water-main projects
A one-page bill rarely rattles product teams, but Illinois House Bill 3141 does just that. Starting January 1, 2026, the Illinois EPA becomes the single gatekeeper for every public water-main, hydrant, and valve that sits in state rights-of-way. If you sell pipe, fittings, or cast-iron heroes that keep firefighters in business, your submittal package—and the environmental data behind it—suddenly matters more than ever.
London Retrofit-First SPD: A Manufacturer’s Carbon Cheat-Sheet
Corporate fit-out giants eyeing the Square Mile have a new rulebook: reuse before rebuild. The City of London’s Planning for Sustainability Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), adopted in January 2025, makes “retrofit first” more than a slogan. For manufacturers, the guidance turns product data—especially Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)—into a passport for planning approval. Miss the signal and your steel, glazing, or HVAC kit may never cross the draughty threshold of a London tender.
PA HR 83: Will Your Products Pass the Sustainability Test?
Pennsylvania’s House Resolution 83 tells the Joint State Government Commission to figure out how—and how soon—the Commonwealth could require greener materials in both public and private builds. While it is “just a study,” history shows that procurement rules often follow close behind. Manufacturers that sell steel, cement, glass, or any of the usual heavy hitters now face a ticking clock: document embodied carbon or risk losing future bids.
New York’s Low-Carbon Tax Break: A6566/S7648 Decoded
Eight and a half percent. That is the average sales-tax bite on every cubic yard of concrete, lumber stud, or metal deck shipped into New York jobsites. Under the twin bills A6566/S7648, low-carbon versions dodge that bite entirely while qualifying plants pick up new grants to fund their EPD work. Miss the paperwork and you still pay full freight.
NY A6566: Low Carbon Tax Perks Need EPD Proof
Sales‐tax exemption on concrete, steel, asphalt, and other materials in New York will soon hinge on a single document: a verified Environmental Product Declaration. Assembly Bill A 6566, the “Building Embodied Carbon Breakthrough Act,” pairs a carrot (up to $10 k per plant to cover EPD costs) with a stick (15 % GWP cuts required to claim the exemption). If your mix designs or melt routes live in filing cabinets, now is the moment to dig them out.
Nebraska L.B.163 puts climate on the front burner
A one-page bill could tip Nebraska’s climate strategy from passive to proactive by standing up an Office of Climate Action. If that happens, expect new grant windows, procurement scorecards, and data demands to ripple through every factory gate.
Illinois SB 2484: A Buy Clean Blueprint
If your concrete, asphalt, steel, or even refrigerator ends up on Illinois-funded jobs, Senate Bill 2484 could soon make an Environmental Product Declaration as vital as a spec sheet. The proposal moves global-warming-potential caps, LCA language, and a looming study into the State’s procurement rulebook. Sit tight? Better to sprint.
RE2020: France’s Carbon Rulebook Hits 2025 Gear
France just ratcheted down the carbon caps for new buildings. If your product’s footprint is missing from the INIES database, project teams may skip you rather than miss the permit.
HB 6027: Connecticut’s Buy Clean Blueprint
Connecticut is flirting with a procurement rule that would give state-funded buildings a clear preference for steel, concrete, insulation and other materials with a lighter climate footprint. If HB 6027 crosses the finish line, any manufacturer without credible embodied-carbon data could watch millions in public-project revenue disappear.
How The EPD Landscape is Developing in 2025
Thirteen thousand five hundred twelve new Environmental Product Declarations landed between January and September 2025. That single figure speaks volumes. Behind it sits a reshaped supply chain, a few dominant program operators, and hundreds of manufacturers racing to turn transparency into tender wins.
BIM Meets EPD: Win Specs Faster
BIM files are the new product catalog for architects. If your environmental product declaration sits in a PDF while competitors deliver machine-readable impacts straight inside Revit, guess whose widget lands in the spec. Here’s how manufacturers can plug trustworthy EPD data into Building Information Modeling and turn carbon transparency into deal flow.
EPD Turkey: Regional Operator Snapshot
Deadline-driven specifiers in Istanbul want proof, not promises. That’s why more than 170 Turkish manufacturers have parked 836 Environmental Product Declarations inside the EPD Turkey registry as of July 2025. If your plant sits anywhere between Edirne and Erzurum—and you crave an EN 15804-compliant document that still speaks the language of European buyers—SÜRATAM’s program operator may be the shortest runway to take-off.
Where EPDs Decide Who Wins Public Bids
Across the US and Europe, public buyers have put Environmental Product Declarations on the must-have list. Miss one form and you are out of the running before price ever enters the room. Below is the current lay of the land, what triggers the mandate, and how big the projects must be.
EU CSRD: What Manufacturers Must Know Now
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive keeps shapeshifting: first the 2022 headlines, then the August 2024 ESRS release, and now a February 2025 “stop-the-clock” that chopped 80 % of companies from scope. The rules are still coming for thousands of building-product makers that sell into Europe’s supply chains. Skip the noise and see what the directive really demands—and how the product-level data you already collect for an EPD can tick half the boxes.
EU Construction Products Regulation: What Manufacturers Must Know
CE marking alone no longer cuts it. The recast EU Construction Products Regulation (effective 7 January 2025) folds sustainability metrics and digital product passports into market-access rules. Miss the new data asks and a product shipment can stall at the border. Here is the fast-track tour for anyone juggling LCA data, EPD deadlines, and cross-Atlantic sales goals.
ESPR: The EU’s New Eco-Design Rulebook
The EU just gave every product a sustainability scorecard. Miss the requirements and your next shipment to Europe could sit on the dock—literally.
EPD Timeline: Clocking Every Step to Publication
Bid windows keep shrinking, yet a verified Environmental Product Declaration rarely appears overnight. Knowing which tasks swallow time lets you organise resources, keep sales teams in the loop, and sidestep deadline drama. Below we unpack the typical calendar, flag the stages that most often slip, and share benchmark numbers pulled from program-operator FAQs and 2025 market surveys.
EPD Alternatives: Four Paths to Show Impact
An Environmental Product Declaration is not the only passport you can hand a skeptical buyer. From Europe’s new PEF to classic eco-labels, several badges promise to prove your product’s green chops. The catch: each one solves a different problem and carries a different price in time, data, and credibility.
The EPD Template: Form Last, Data First
Anyone can download a fresh Environmental Product Declaration template in seconds, but only solid numbers turn that shell into market currency. Focus on nailing the data and the rest of the layout rules will fall neatly into place.
BREEAM Materials credits: win specs with solid data
BREEAM’s Materials category looks small on paper but often swings the final rating. If your products arrive with a robust, third-party EPD, you hand design teams an easy credit—and nudge competitors off the shortlist.
EPDs Win Specs and Tenders
Every week, bid managers lose hours hunting for proof that their product meets the carbon limits hidden deep inside tender documents. An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) drops that scramble. It pins down climate data in a format that owners, architects, and public buyers already trust. When the clock is ticking, the bid that arrives with a current EPD usually reaches the shortlist before one packed with promises but no numbers.
Keep Your EPD Alive: Validity & Updates
Nothing kills a spec faster than an expired Environmental Product Declaration. Yet many manufacturers forget that the five-year timer, moving targets, and surprise data calls. Here’s how to avoid the last-minute scramble.
"No One Asks for EPDs" Is a Myth
If your reps swear nobody ever asks for Environmental Product Declarations, blame the sales funnel, not the market. Buyers who need EPDs simply drop you from the shortlist before the first call. The real demand hides in tender language, not sales calls.
Transport Data: Trucks, Trains, Reality
If your EPD feels stuck at the border between factory gate and construction site, nine times out of ten the holdup is transport data. Carriers sit on pallets of numbers but pull them together about as fast as a dial-up modem. Here’s how to tease out what you need, and what to use when the data ghosts you.
From Raw Data to Published EPD in Six Moves
“Third-party EPD” can sound like a six-letter mystery. In reality it’s a relay race: data leaves your plant, races through an LCA engine, gets scrutinized by an independent referee, and crosses the finish line at a program operator. Follow this lap-by-lap breakdown so your product earns its declaration without lost time—or lost sleep.
Multi-Site Manufacturing: One Product, Clear Carbon Math
One widget, three plants, five time zones, your procurement team loves the flexibility, but your LCA analyst sees a migraine. Different electricity grids and transport routes can swing cradle-to-gate emissions by triple-digit percentages. Here is how to keep the numbers honest and auditors happy.
Module A: Upfront Carbon Decoded
Module A covers everything that happens before a product reaches the jobsite—extraction, processing, factory work, trucking, and on-site installation. Get this slice wrong and the rest of your EPD wobbles. Nail it and you cut the biggest chunk of embodied carbon right where specifiers are staring. Here is how to make Module A numbers rock-solid and sales-ready.
Module B: The Use Phase Reality Check
Manufacturers often obsess over A1–A3 raw-material numbers yet forget that specifiers keep scrolling to Module B. If you cannot show how a product behaves in the messy middle of a building’s life, you risk losing on bids that score whole-life carbon. The seven sub-modules track every kilowatt, gasket swap, and drop of rinse water once your product is installed. Nail them, and you turn an LCA line item into a powerful proof of performance.
CE Mark 2025: Decoding the New CPR Rulebook
Europe’s Construction Products Regulation just hit refresh. As of 7 January 2025, every CE-marked product must share more than strength and safety stats. Digital Product Passports will soon surface carbon footprints and recycling clues in a single scan, and early pilots already cut site waste by up to fifteen percent (Build Up, 2025). For manufacturers, that shift spells both new paperwork and a fresh edge in specification battles.
Life Cycle Assessment: The X-Ray of Product Impact
A new contractor spec drops on your desk, and there it is: “Provide LCA data.” If the term still feels like alphabet soup, you are not alone. Yet manufacturers meeting this ask win bids faster and fend off cheaper rivals that lack proof of performance.
LEED v4 to v5: Your EPD Playbook
When LEED v4 landed, EPDs felt like extra credit. With v5, they are a front-row requirement. Every specifier now scans for transparent carbon math, and projects short-list brands that can prove it fast. Manufacturers that treat EPDs as paperwork risk missing bids before they begin.
Module C: The End-of-Life Wild Card
Most teams sweat over raw-material data, then slap a generic “landfill” line on the last page of the LCA. Trouble is, end-of-life assumptions now sway procurement scores, circular-economy claims, and even demolition permits. Ignore Module C and you hand rivals free points.
Resinous Flooring EPDs: Who’s Really Winning?
Sustainability has turned resinous flooring from a commodity into a credentials race. Specifiers now scan databases before samples. If your product’s environmental story is missing or expired, it may never reach the shortlist.
LEED v5: Embodied Carbon Moves to Center Stage
LEED v5 flips the script: before a project can claim even its first point, the team must tally the cradle-to-gate carbon of concrete, steel, glass and other high-impact materials. That shake-up puts Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) in the spotlight—and manufacturers without them risk being locked out of specifications from day one.
Digital Product Passports and the New EU Ecodesign Rulebook
A quiet deadline is racing toward every factory gate in Europe. The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) took effect on 18 July 2024 and, with it, the Digital Product Passport (DPP) became real law instead of buzzy concept. Brussels has now set the clock: product groups on the first ESPR Working Plan, published April 2025, will need passports first, and all physical goods sold in the EU are expected to carry one by 2030. Manufacturers who rely on Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) today have an inside track, but only if they tighten their data house now.
Build Your ROI Calculator for EPDs
Your CFO wants numbers, not vibes. An Environmental Product Declaration feels like paperwork until someone shows how it unlocks bids that were off-limits yesterday. Below is a simple framework you can copy into a spreadsheet today, fed by data points the market already tracks.
