About Walker
Walker Ryan is a climate-tech entrepreneur focused on driving industrial decarbonization through better data. As the founder and CEO of Parq, he helps manufacturers generate high-quality, third-party–verified carbon disclosures at scale—accelerating a traditionally slow and expensive process. Before starting Parq, Walker led over $200 million in sustainability-focused investments as VP of Strategy & Growth at ReStream Solutions, following earlier experience in investment banking at Deutsche Bank. He brings a rare mix of capital markets expertise and hands-on sustainability knowledge to tackling the infrastructure of industrial emissions.
Recent Articles
When No PCR Exists: How To Forge One
Running into a product with no Product Category Rule feels like opening Monopoly and finding the rulebook missing. You *could* play by house rules, but the bank will call foul. Below is the fast-track map manufacturers use to write the missing rulebook—and get back to winning bids—without drowning in redlines.
EN 15804 +A2: Your New EPD Rulebook
Feeling whiplash from the constant upgrades to Environmental Product Declarations? EN 15804 +A2 rewires the core rules for every construction-product EPD published in Europe. Miss a clause and your declaration may land in the reject pile—or worse, the spec that should have been yours ends up with a faster rival. Below is the condensed playbook for staying compliant while keeping sales momentum.
LEED Zero: Turning Credits Into Concrete Wins
Net-zero is no longer a buzzword, it is a score on the LEED chart that architects track as closely as fire-safety codes. LEED Zero rewards buildings that push past “less bad” and hit zero for carbon, energy, water, or waste. If your product shaves even a fraction off those impact tallies, you move up the spec sheet. Here is the playbook for manufacturers who want to ride that wave, not watch it from shore.
EPD First, HPD Fast: Double ROI, Half Effort
Collecting cradle-to-gate numbers for an EPD feels like herding every invoice, utility bill, and transport ticket your plant has printed in a year. The good news: once that spreadsheet is tamed, ninety percent of what a Health Product Declaration asks for is already in your files. Turning one disclosure into two is a quick extra lap that multiplies bid-day advantages without multiplying headaches.
Part B in PCRs: the product type-specific fine print for your EPD
Ever wondered why a rulebook called "Part A" is never alone? Part B is its sidekick, quietly deciding how your flooring plank or HVAC coil gets measured, compared, and ultimately specced.
baubook: Austria’s Eco Database Decoded
If you want your insulation, cladding, or piping specified on Austrian projects aiming for klimaaktiv gold, baubook is practically the guest list at the door. Miss the list and designers will swap you out for a product that is enrolled. The good news: getting in is simpler than many first think, if you understand the rules, speak the lingo, and feed the system clean, verified data.
Pick the Right PCR, Win the Bid
Grab the wrong Product Category Rule and your Environmental Product Declaration can stall six months, miss a bid date, or fail verification outright. The right PCR, in contrast, clears a straight runway for life-cycle modeling, third-party review, and faster market access. Here is how manufacturers zero in on the rulebook that fits their product, region, and timeline.
Secondary Data: Hidden Risk in EPD Projects
Life-cycle databases are fantastic for idea-stage modeling, but stake your final EPD on generic proxies and you invite credibility gaps, lost bids, and frantic last-minute data chases. The smartest manufacturers swap proxy shortcuts for laser-targeted primary data, without burying their engineering teams in spreadsheets. Here’s why.
Non-Hazardous Waste: The Sleeper Metric in Your LCA
Carbon steals the spotlight, yet every EPD still prints a boldfaced line for “non-hazardous waste disposed.” Mess up that line and specifiers will question the rest of your data. Here is how to nail the number and even trim it before the LCA clock starts ticking.
Module D: Your EPD’s Second Life Credit
Manufacturers lose bids when they ignore the carbon story after demolition. Module D adds that missing chapter, turning future reuse and recycling potential into hard-number benefits right on the EPD front page. Here is why skipping it can cost you projects—and how smart data prep keeps the calculation painless.
Finding the Right PCR: Your Shortcut Guide
Pick the wrong Product Category Rule and your EPD project can stall for months. Choose the right one and the declaration writes itself, shaving weeks off verification and letting sales teams wave that green badge sooner.
Which PCR Fits Resinous Flooring?
Specifiers crave EPDs, yet the rulebooks behind them can feel like grabbing phone chargers in a dark hotel room. They all look right until the plug refuses to fit. Below is your cheat sheet to the PCRs steering resinous flooring disclosures in mid-2025 and the fresh rules landing soon.
Your EPD Can Pay Dividends
You spent months corralling plant data, then celebrated when the verified document arrived. Now the file sits in a shared drive while your sales team keeps pitching on price. An EPD is more than proof of good practice. Treat it as a revenue lever, and the math starts to look interesting.
ISO 14025: The Passport Behind Credible EPDs
A nutrition label is only useful when everyone trusts what is on the back of the box. The same applies to an Environmental Product Declaration. ISO 14025 sets the rules that keep every EPD honest, comparable, and accepted on job sites where a single missing credential can erase you from the bid list overnight.
From LCA to EPD: Navigating PCRs and Verification Paths
An LCA can feel like a raw data avalanche. A Product Category Rule (PCR) funnels that data into a language the market speaks, and a verified Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) turns it into a passport that wins specs. Done right, this journey is shorter and smoother than many teams assume.
Four Environmental Impact Categories You Should Know
You poured months into perfecting a product, yet one missing number can still keep you off the bid list. Impact categories like global warming or regional water scarcity may read like jargon, but project teams now judge them as sharply as price. Miss the mark and you risk being locked out before the conversation even starts.
illbruck nails seamless EPD data collection with Parq
When illbruck needed Environmental Product Declarations, Parq made the month-long process feel like a game of Pac-Man—gobbling up their data with almost no effort from their team. Their experts stayed focused while our platform handled the heavy lifting, delivering results in just weeks.
Life Cycle Inventory (LCI): From Numbers to Results
Most EPD delays start long before the verifier opens your report. The bottleneck is Life-Cycle Inventory (LCI) data that arrives late, arrives messy, or never arrives at all. Master the basics below and you will cut weeks off every credential project—whether you tackle it in-house or team up with a white-glove partner.
