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.
Why Impact Categories Decide Winners
Owners lean on impact scores to sift qualified suppliers, and the field is narrowing fast. Forty state DOTs already require environmental product declarations on key materials (FHWA, 2024). Contractors respond by short-listing manufacturers whose documents answer every impact category with confidence.
Global Warming Potential: The Headline Metric
Every ton of CO₂ counts toward embodied-carbon caps that tighten each budget cycle. Cement shows why: one kilogram of CO₂ equals exactly one kilogram of GWP, while methane packs nearly thirty times the punch (IPCC, 2023). EPDs that openly benchmark both upstream fuel and process emissions let sales teams prove continuous reduction year over year rather than chase a single heroic cut.
Acidification: Hidden Cost of Combustion
Nitric and sulfur oxides from kilns drift far beyond the stack and return as acid rain. Regulators capture that fallout in “mol H⁺ eq” scores; one kilogram of ammonia registers 3.02 mol H⁺ eq against your total (EPD International, 2023). Buyers translate high acidification potential into maintenance risk on surrounding assets, making low numbers a direct competitive edge.
Eutrophication: Nutrients Nobody Ordered
Excess nitrogen and phosphorus wash off job sites into waterways, sparking algae blooms that choke fisheries and recreation economies. Life-cycle models roll those releases into “kg N eq” tallies. A ready-mix with a ten-percent lower eutrophication score can tip decisions in regions where clean-water stakeholders hold sway (UNEP, 2024). Spell it out and let procurement teams see daylight between you and commodity rivals.
Regional Water Scarcity: A Local Hero Metric
Water impacts are no longer averaged globally. A plant in Arizona faces harsher multipliers than one in Maine because scarcity is location specific. The AWARE 2.0 method converts each liter withdrawn into scarcity-weighted cubic meters (WULCA, 2025). Showing that you recycle process water or harvest roof runoff trims the factor at its root and speaks volumes in drought-prone markets.
Translating Scores into Sales Conversations
Impact categories unlock doors only when sales teams can explain them in plain English. Equip reps with a one-page primer that links category scores to customer pain points. Parq includes that primer in every delivery, so your commercial team starts ahead of the brief instead of playing catch-up.
About the Author
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.