by Parq

The Data That Feeds EPDs

27 Articles

•Complete guide and resources

EPDs are only as good as the data behind them. This topic explores the databases and datasets that power EPDs—LCI libraries, electricity grid factors, transport routes and modes, manufacturing assumptions, and end-of-life scenarios—and how those inputs shape results, comparability, and confidence in the numbers.

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Half of the image shows circuitry, the other half a gloved engineer’s hand, meeting in the middle over a detailed blueprint of a product.

How Artificial Intelligence Can Support First Pass LCA Bill of Materials (BOM) Mapping

Manual life-cycle inventory mapping once meant staring at spreadsheets for days. Today, advanced...

Blueprint with penalty stamp

Primary Data: The EPD Accuracy Multiplier

Specifiers no longer settle for industry-average footprints. Miss too much primary data and your...

List with three types of waste

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...

MCP and GPT chatbot helping with the creation of LCAs and EPDs.

GPT-Powered BOM Data and MCP Are Next for EPDs

Bill of materials spreadsheets still suck hours out of every EPD project. Imagine an AI that...

Fraight via Lory vs. Rail

Transport Data: Trucks, Trains, Reality

If your EPD feels stuck at the border between factory gate and construction site, nine times out of...

LCI Proxy vs. Primary Data in EPDs

Secondary Data: Hidden Risk in EPD Projects

Life-cycle databases are fantastic for idea-stage modeling, but stake your final EPD on generic...

A simple conveyor-belt graphic showing an EPD file feeding into databases, then into LCA software, culminating in a building carbon bar chart.

From EPD Sheet to Whole-Building Scorecard

Architects and LCA consultants rarely read your EPD the way you do. Instead, they scrape the...

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Battery passports, DPPs, and EPDs in one playbook
Battery manufacturers planning new plants while selling into the EU juggle three asks that sound similar but are not: EPDs for embodied carbon disclosure, battery passports for each physical battery, and broader Digital Product Passport rules coming through ecodesign. The trick is building one data spine at plant level that feeds all three so teams avoid duplicate work and last‑minute scrambles.

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Battery passports, DPPs, and EPDs in one playbook

Battery manufacturers planning new plants while selling into the EU juggle three asks that sound...

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Get factory waste EPD‑ready: scrap, cut‑offs, exclusions
Most plants track hazardous waste like a hawk, then lose the thread on non‑hazardous scrap. EPDs do not. Verifiers expect a consistent picture of all significant streams by material and fate, including trimmed cable lengths, rejected connectors, and packaging offcuts that never leave the gate. Here’s a fast, verifier‑friendly way to make that waste EPD‑ready without bogging engineers down in crumbs.

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Get factory waste EPD‑ready: scrap, cut‑offs, exclusions

Most plants track hazardous waste like a hawk, then lose the thread on non‑hazardous scrap. EPDs do...

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Taming messy supplier and logistics data for EPDs
ERP exports and shipping logs rarely map neatly to a single SKU. The good news is that LCA models do not require every truck stop or pallet scan. With the right structure, high‑level supplier locations, typical transport modes, and a few sensible allocations will produce credible, auditor‑ready EPDs without months of detective work.

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Taming messy supplier and logistics data for EPDs

ERP exports and shipping logs rarely map neatly to a single SKU. The good news is that LCA models...

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Allocating shared plant emissions to products in EPDs
One paint line. Five product families. One utility meter. The math feels unfair until allocation rules turn that tangle into an auditable story buyers can trust. Here is how to carve plant‑level energy and VOCs into product‑level numbers without rebuilding your entire metering setup.

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Allocating shared plant emissions to products in EPDs

One paint line. Five product families. One utility meter. The math feels unfair until allocation...

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The plant data LCA teams actually need
Plants juggle throughput, uptime, and safety. Then a request for “primary data for the EPD” lands and everything slows. Here’s the short, practical list LCA practitioners truly need from manufacturing sites, plus which teams usually hold it and when a small, PCR‑acceptable assumption is fine so projects dont stall.

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The plant data LCA teams actually need

Plants juggle throughput, uptime, and safety. Then a request for “primary data for the EPD” lands...

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Supplier data triage for component‑heavy EPDs
Hundreds of screws, rivets, clips, and fittings can stall an LCA before it starts. The trick is not chasing every bolt, it is structuring supplier data so a verifier sees logic, coverage, and consistency without turning procuremnt into a scavenger hunt.

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Supplier data triage for component‑heavy EPDs

Hundreds of screws, rivets, clips, and fittings can stall an LCA before it starts. The trick is not...

$Generate an illustration for an article following this concept: Model supplier and logistics data without plant maps Missing exact factory coordinates should not freeze an EPD. Capture what is known with discipline, then model the rest. A practical recipe is to log supplier names, packaging specs, and the distribution centers products typically ship through. Use routing models to infer likely manufacturing locations and the shortest credible legs between nodes. When materials come from multiple suppliers, assign purchase fractions so LCA software can weight impacts correctly. You move fast, keep transparency, and validate fine points during review instead of guessing for weeks. Ensure that you use no text, as this illustration will be used on international translations of the article.. Use an illustrative style (e.g. isometic) and don't generate in a photorealistic style.$

Model supplier and logistics data without plant maps

Missing exact factory coordinates should not freeze an EPD. Capture what is known with discipline,...

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Allocating plant utilities to product EPDs, without drama
Multi‑product plants rarely meter every line. Utility and wastewater totals live at the plant level, which stalls LCAs when teams chase SKU‑level data that does not exist. The pragmatic path is to allocate from annual facility totals using a clear driver, then tighten where it matters most. It is fast, defensable, and aligns with common PCR expectations when documented and sensitivity checked.

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Allocating plant utilities to product EPDs, without drama

Multi‑product plants rarely meter every line. Utility and wastewater totals live at the plant...

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Distribution data that’s good enough for EPDs
Distribution modeling trips up even seasoned teams. The good news is you don’t need to model every order. A lean, defensbile approach that combines mode-and-distance for the factory to port to regional DC legs plus outbound patterns to customer zip codes will usually satisfy PCRs, speed verification, and sharpen the A4 and C2 results that specifiers scrutinize.

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Distribution data that’s good enough for EPDs

Distribution modeling trips up even seasoned teams. The good news is you don’t need to model every...

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How to collect Scope 3 Purchased Goods data
Category 1 drives the bulk of many manufacturers’ footprints, yet it is the messiest data to wrangle. Nail this once and your LCAs, EPDs, and customer answers flow faster, with fewer fire drills when specs land.

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How to collect Scope 3 Purchased Goods data

Category 1 drives the bulk of many manufacturers’ footprints, yet it is the messiest data to...

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KBOB LCA Data for Swiss Construction, Explained
Winning Swiss specs gets easier when teams speak the same data language. The KBOB life cycle assessment dataset is that lingua franca. It guides public buyers and design teams, and it can guide manufacturers too. Here’s how to use it to sharpen LCAs, align with SIA’s climate path, and decide when a product‑specific EPD gives you the commercial edge. Yes, you can do both without drowning in spreadsheets.

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KBOB LCA Data for Swiss Construction, Explained

Winning Swiss specs gets easier when teams speak the same data language. The KBOB life cycle...

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EPA eGRID, decoded for manufacturer EPDs
Electricity is the silent heavyweight in many LCAs. EPA’s eGRID dataset decides how carbon intensive that electricity is for your plants, which then shapes A1 to A3 results and the story your EPD tells. Use the right region and year and your numbers sing. Miss it and you leave accuracy and specs on the table.

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EPA eGRID, decoded for manufacturer EPDs

Electricity is the silent heavyweight in many LCAs. EPA’s eGRID dataset decides how carbon...

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Energy mix: the hidden EPD multiplier
Energy data is the plot twist in many LCAs. The same plant, same recipe, two different grids and your EPD swings from competitive to forgettable. If utility bills are scattered or REC paperwork is fuzzy, timelines slip and credibility takes a hit.

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Energy mix: the hidden EPD multiplier

Energy data is the plot twist in many LCAs. The same plant, same recipe, two different grids and...

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VOC emissions vs content: use the right test
Submittals get bounced for one reason more than most: someone claimed “low VOC” without the test method the spec actually asked for. Interior products live or die on this detail. Here is how to line up emissions and content claims so reviewers say yes, fast.

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VOC emissions vs content: use the right test

Submittals get bounced for one reason more than most: someone claimed “low VOC” without the test...

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The EPD Bill of Materials, Simplified
Missing materials, fuzzy units, and guessy supplier data slow EPDs to a crawl. A crisp Bill of Materials is the spine of your declaration, turning plant knowledge into publishable facts and faster specs. Build it right once, then reuse it across product lines without the back‑and‑forth that eats calendar time and margin.

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The EPD Bill of Materials, Simplified

Missing materials, fuzzy units, and guessy supplier data slow EPDs to a crawl. A crisp Bill of...

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EPD data requirements for 2026, clarified
If 2024 felt like alphabet soup, 2026 looks like a tidy pantry. The rulebooks are stable, procurement still favors product‑specific EPDs, and teams that line up data early publish faster with fewer rewrites. Here is the no‑nonsense view of what to collect, how clean it needs to be, and the few shifts to keep an eye on so bids stay eligible and specs stick.

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EPD data requirements for 2026, clarified

If 2024 felt like alphabet soup, 2026 looks like a tidy pantry. The rulebooks are stable,...

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What Data You Need To Prepare For An EPD
An EPD moves as fast as your data is ready. Pull the right files early and the path from kickoff to a third‑party verified, spec‑ready declaration gets a lot smoother. Miss a few essentials and the project stalls while teams chase spreadsheets, utility bills, and supplier confirmations. Here is the practical checklist and context to make your first EPD feel like a tidy pit stop, not a teardown.

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What Data You Need To Prepare For An EPD

An EPD moves as fast as your data is ready. Pull the right files early and the path from kickoff to...

A factory dashboard with a gauge showing data age from 0 to 10 years, highlighting under 5 years in green for primary data and up to 10 years in yellow for background.

LCA Data Age And Accuracy, Explained For Builders

Old numbers sink trust. Fresh ones win specs. If you sell into projects that score carbon, the age...

Haz vs. Non-Haz Waste

Hazardous Waste Data: The EPD Wildcard

No product manager brags about their hazardous-waste line item, yet the kilograms you generate,...

Jenga tower of upstream data being swapped out against proxies

Upstream Data: The Hidden Fuel of Reliable EPDs

Module A1, the upstream slice of an Environmental Product Declaration, often carries three-quarters...

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