Lazaros Kaltsidis Wood Industry S.A. published its first Environmental Product Declarations in April 2026. Both cover the company's core product: veneered MDF panels and veneered chipboard panels, verified under the International EPD System. For a Greek veneer specialist selling to architects, joinery shops and interior fit-out contractors, this puts third-party carbon data next to its veneers. That puts it level with the big board producers and ahead of veneered panel rivals that still lack EPDs.
What Kaltsidis published
The debut is two EPDs, both issued by EPD International AB (the program operator behind the International EPD System). Both follow PCR 2019:14 Construction products (EN 15804+A2), version 1.3.3, and both are valid until April 2031.
- Veneered MDF Panels: declared unit of 1 m² of a 2.80 m x 2.07 m panel, 19 mm thick, with an area density of 13.92 kg/m².
- Veneered Chipboard Panels: declared unit of 1 m² of a 2.80 m x 2.07 m panel, 16 mm thick, at roughly 10.07 kg/m².
The MDF declaration is labelled an "EPD of multiple products, based on a representative product", so it covers a family of panels rather than a single SKU. Both documents also mention the company's KEROS ECO pre-finished veneered panels. The LCA practitioner named in the EPDs is R3 Knowledge Sustainability, so the company had outside help with the modelling.
A veneer house with four decades of grain
Kaltsidis has worked in wood for more than 40 years. It is based in Thessaloniki, Greece, and specialises in veneers and architectural veneered panels. It keeps over 150 veneer species in stock, and the KEROS collection of brushed, stained and lacquered pre-finished panels is aimed squarely at architects and interior designers who want the look of solid wood without the weight or waste.
That audience matters. Hotel lobbies, offices, retail fit-outs and high-end residential interiors are the projects most likely to come with whole-building LCA requirements, green building certification targets or corporate carbon budgets. A veneered wall panel without an EPD is like a guest arriving at a black-tie event in jeans. It might be let in, but it gets noticed for the wrong reasons.
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Why the timing works in Europe
The revised EU Construction Products Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/3110) entered into force in January 2025. It phases in environmental performance declarations for construction products as harmonised technical specifications get updated. Several European markets already require embodied carbon calculations for new buildings. When a designer has no product-specific data, they often have to fall back on conservative generic values, sometimes with an added safety margin.
That's the hidden cost of not having an EPD. The panel isn't banned; it just looks worse on paper than it really is. With verified figures in hand, Kaltsidis gives specifiers a reason to keep its panels in the design rather than swap in a product whose data is easier to plug into the model.
How the competition stacks up
In plain board, Kaltsidis is catching up with players that got there earlier. Greek neighbour AKRITAS S.A. holds four EPDs for raw and melamine-faced chipboard, also with the International EPD System. All four are valid until February 2027, so renewal is coming soon. Spain's Financiera Maderera (Finsa) is further ahead with 14 current EPDs, including new 2026 declarations for plain and melamine-faced MDF and bio-based particleboard. Both are under the same program operator Kaltsidis chose, so specifiers comparing like-for-like data will find them side by side.
In veneered panels specifically, things look more open. We found no EPDs in the global directory for SHELMAN, the Greek producer of veneered chipboard, plywood and coated panels. Neither turned up for veneer specialists Danzer and Decospan. That gives Kaltsidis a real advantage wherever a project wants product-specific data for a veneered decorative panel, rather than generic data for a raw board.
From PDF to the specifier's screen
There is good news on visibility. Both declarations are already hosted on the company's own site as downloadable PDFs (for example the Veneered MDF Panels EPD). The next step is to give them a clearly signposted spot. A sustainability or downloads page that links each EPD from the matching product pages, especially KEROS, would make them much easier for a busy specifier to find.
Timing deserves a mention too. EPDs are often issued by the program operator weeks or even months before they show up in the global databases that architects and LCA practitioners search. That gap matters, because a panel missing from the tool a designer uses might as well not have an EPD on that project. Cutting the delay should be part of the plan for every future declaration. Communication rules are also tightening: the EU Empowering Consumers Directive applies from 27 September 2026, and the International EPD System has issued guidance on how EPDs can be referenced in marketing (EPD International, 2026).
Where Kaltsidis goes from here
Two EPDs covering the company's two main substrates is a smart, focused start. Next steps could include extending coverage to KEROS finishes or plywood-based panels, if customers are asking for them. Sales teams are often the first to hear that request, and quite often they don't pass it on.
Kaltsidis now competes in the transparency arena on the same footing as the large board makers. In veneered panels, it is ahead of the regional rivals that still lack EPDs. The data is there and it's verified. Now it just needs to reach every specifier's desk.
