Terracotta manufacturer adopts ESV, eyes EPD next

What just happened

Darwen Terracotta, a leading architectural-terracotta manufacturer , earned Made in Britain’s Environmental and Social Value Certification and said it is calculating LCAs to obtain Environmental Product Declarations. That pairing matters because ESV helps a firm talk about impact, while EPDs let products speak in numbers.

ESV in a nutshell

Made in Britain’s ESV Certification is a quick, survey-based credential aligned to the UK Government’s Social Value Model and the Procurement Act 2023. It is valid for 12 months, based on self-declared responses, and is not a formal third-party accreditation (Made in Britain, 2025). Use it to package policies, community work, and environmental committment in one place.

Why ESV helps in public bids

Central government must score Social Value at a minimum 10 % of the total tender evaluation from 24 February 2025 under PPN 002, with limited exceptions (Cabinet Office, 2025). Public procurement is a huge market, with gross UK procurement spending reaching about £434 billion in 2024 to 2025 (House of Commons Library, 2025). An ESV badge helps answer Social Value questions cleanly so bid teams can focus technical pages on product performance.

ESV is not an EPD

ESV talks about the company. EPDs quantify a specific product’s impacts across A1 to A3 and beyond. For new builds, embodied carbon often represents roughly half of lifecycle emissions, which is why buyers increasingly ask for verified product data rather than generic assumptions (UKGBC, 2024). When EPDs are missing, teams may plug in conservative values that make you easier to swap out on price alone.

Terracotta’s moment

Terracotta plays in restoration and new façades where heritage look meets durability. Kiln energy, clay sourcing, and yields sit in the hot zone of A1 to A3. A product-specific EPD gives design teams a trusted number they can model, especially when comparing restoration options or brick and terracotta alternates. Think of the PCR as the rulebook of Monopoly. Ignore it and comparisons fall apart.

Visibility where specs are decided

Many UK projects still target BREEAM, and that ecosystem is big. BRE reported 2.33 million BREEAM-registered buildings globally with 610,000 certified as of July 2024 (BRE, 2024). On the EPD side, IBU alone published 533 individual EPDs in 2024 and over 840 total when including tool-generated ones, showing the pipeline is growing and verification capacity is tightening (IBU, 2024). Publishing where your buyers search speeds up shortlists.

Fastest path from ESV to first EPD

1. Pick the target product and confirm the PCR most peers use so your results compare like-for-like.
2. Lock a clean reference year and collect utilities, materials, yields, waste, and transport from the shopfloor, not just from ERP averages.
3. Model the LCA, close reviewer comments, and prepare artwork that future-proofs minor updates.
4. Publish with the operator that reaches your buyers and tools, then map the EPD into project LCA models early.
5. Train sales on where the EPD wins credits and how to answer scope and boundary questions.

Timing and renewal

Plan publication around bid and construction dates so the declaration is valid when it needs to count. Track updates to the applicable PCR and your own process changes so re-runs are smooth rather than painful. There are less headaches when the data collection rhythm is part of normal operations.

The takeaway for manufacturers

Pair a quick, credible company signal with hard product numbers. ESV can unlock cleaner Social Value narratives in UK bids, while EPDs give specifiers the verified impacts they need to choose your product with confidence. Move both forward, in parallel, and the next tender stops being a guessing game.