Thirteen fresh declarations, one clear signal
NKT A/S had a busy week. Between 29 and 30 October 2026, 13 new EPDs from the Danish cable specialist appeared in EC3, Building Transparency's carbon database. All of them were issued through EPD Norway under NPCR 027, the Part B rules for electrical cables and wires.
This is not a one-off. As of 3 November 2026, NKT holds 141 current EPDs in EC3 and has zero expired ones. That's a tidy portfolio for a company whose products sit inside walls, under streets and on the seabed.
Who NKT is, and why cables matter to carbon accounts
NKT was founded in 1898 as Nordiske Kabel og Traadfabrik. Today it makes power cables and accessories for everything from high voltage interconnectors down to the building wire an electrician pulls through a conduit. The company reported organic growth of 6% and a record operational EBITDA of EUR 390m for 2025 (NKT Annual Report, 2025).
Cables are an easy product to overlook in a whole building LCA, because a single metre seems trivial. Multiply it by the kilometres of copper in a hospital or office block, though, and the embodied carbon adds up fast. Designers who have to model that without product specific data are left using conservative defaults.
What the batch actually covers
Twelve of the 13 EPDs cover NKT's halogen free installation cables in two families: EXQ Xtra (cross labelled IFXI ER) and FXQ Xtra (cross labelled IFXI FR). Each family is declared in 3G, 4G and 5G conductor configurations at both 1.5 mm² and 2.5 mm². NKT describes EXQ Xtra as a 300/500 V wiring cable with solid copper conductors, XLPE insulation and a polyolefin sheath (NKT product page).
The 13th EPD covers the CPI 3 connector for 150 to 185 mm² aluminium or copper conductors, declared as a set of three connectors. That puts another medium voltage accessory on file alongside the joints and connectors NKT has already declared.
Every EPD here is a single product declaration tied to one specific article. They aren't family averages. EC3 doesn't list a separate LCA developer or consultant for this batch.
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Deepening coverage where specifiers actually shop
This batch goes deeper into categories NKT already covers rather than opening a new one. The existing portfolio already spans RXQ and AXQJ power cables, medium voltage XLPE cables and a long list of joints and terminations. The new EPDs fill in the everyday sizes: 1.5 and 2.5 mm² multicore cable, the kind that runs to light switches and wall sockets across Scandinavian housing and offices.
That matters because these SKUs are bought in huge volumes and often swapped at the wholesaler counter. When a design team has committed to a carbon budget, a cable with its own verified EPD is much harder to substitute than one without. A product that has no declaration often gets modelled with generic data and a safety margin added on top.
How NKT stacks up against Nordic rivals
The Nordic cable market is crowded, and EPD counts there are high. In EC3, Prysmian Group Norge holds 366 current EPDs and Prysmian Group Sverige (the Draka brand) holds 115, mostly via EPD Norway too. Nexans lists 465 current declarations, largely PEP ecopassport documents, but 220 of its EPDs carry a 2026 expiry date, so it faces a heavy renewal season.
NKT's 141 current EPDs and clean expiry record put it at parity on the products it covers. The new EXQ Xtra and FXQ Xtra declarations line up head to head with similar halogen free installation cables that competitors have already declared. Specifiers comparing like for like now have NKT data to put in the spreadsheet. For more context on the operator behind these documents, see our explainer on EPD Norway.
Visibility on nkt.com is already strong
NKT gets a lot right here. Its dedicated EPD page links to a searchable download centre, and individual product pages bundle the EPD next to the data sheet and the Declaration of Performance. That's exactly where an electrical engineer looks when assembling submittals.
The next step would be to make sure every new declaration shows up there as soon as it's published, labelled with its NEPD number. A specifier who can't find the PDF in under a minute will often fall back on a generic value.
The lag between issuance and listing
EC3 shows a validity end of 1 January 2031 for these declarations, which suggests they were issued around the start of 2026. If that's right, roughly ten months passed before they reached the database where many design teams search. During that window the data existed, but it was hard for anyone running a carbon model to find.
Cutting that delay lets specifiers recieve verified numbers while projects are still at the design stage, which is when material choices actually get made. Manufacturers who want future EPDs listed faster can reach out to the author directly via LinkedIn or email.
A milestone built on small wires
Halogen free installation cable isn't glamorous, and that's the point. NKT has put third party verified, product specific numbers on the cables that end up in almost every Nordic building. Thirteen more declarations make its catalogue easier to specify, easier to defend in a carbon budget and harder to swap out for a competing cable.
