Canada Brick: products, positioning, and their EPD picture
Canada Brick sits inside General Shale’s brand network in Canada, supplying clay brick and thin brick to residential and commercial jobs through Ontario plants. For teams chasing LEED v5 credits and owner policies that now ask for EPDs more often, here is the quick read on what they make, and how well those lines are covered by declarations right now.
Who Canada Brick is, in one glance
Canada Brick is General Shale’s Canadian brick brand, relaunched after the Meridian Brick acquisition, with operations integrated into a broader North American footprint (General Shale, 2025). They manufacture in Burlington and Aldershot, Ontario, and note an internal Sustainability Committee guiding improvements. That is a helpful signal, and it lives on their About page if you want to bookmark it (Canada Brick, 2025).
What they sell
Core is fired clay brick in full‑bed formats for residential and architectural work, plus thin brick for interiors and retrofit. The catalog stretches across smooth and textured faces, contemporary greys and classic reds, modular and oversize formats. Count the SKUs loosely in the dozens for brick colors and formats, and additional dozens for thin brick. The site also spotlights stone detailing and a curated mix of stone through sister brand Arriscraft for combined brick‑and‑stone façades.
EPD coverage today
We did not find Canada Brick product‑specific EPDs publicly posted as of December 19, 2025. Their parent network participates in the Brick Industry Association’s 2025 industry‑average EPD for clay masonry products, which represents data from 29 facilities and 39.3% of U.S. production in 2023. That document covers clay brick, thin brick, clay pavers and structural clay tile, cradle to grave (BIA Industry Average EPD, 2025). Industry‑average EPDs qualify for the LEED disclosure credit, yet they do not carry the same counting advantage as product‑specific Type III with external verification under current credit language (USGBC Credit Library, 2024).
Why that gap matters under LEED v5
LEED v5 was ratified on March 28, 2025 and continues the push for lower embodied carbon and verified transparency in materials. Teams still rely on EPDs to complete the BPDO credit quickly, and product‑specific Type III EPDs remain the easiest way to help a project hit its product tally with fewer line items (USGBC, 2025). Said simply, if a spec is comparing two equal bricks, the one with a product‑specific, third‑party‑verified EPD is less likely to be swapped out.
Likely bestseller check
Canada Brick promotes contemporary series like District and Waterfront across channels. We did not locate a product‑specific EPD for these series on their site at press time. If a residential developer or university project is targeting LEED points on a compressed schedule, that missing document can be the tiny pebble in the shoe that sends procurement toward a closely priced alternative that makes submittals painless.
Who they run into on bids
In Canada, brick head‑to‑heads frequently include Brampton Brick and Shaw Brick, with Glen‑Gery showing up on some architectural specs via distributors. On commercial façades, design teams sometimes pivot to terracotta rainscreen or calcium silicate stone for similar aesthetics. Those categories increasingly publish EPDs, for example terracotta cladding lines from NBK and new EPD disclosures from Ludowici roof and wall tile, which are often evaluated alongside brick on civic and education projects (NBK, 2024) (Ludowici, 2025).
Where coverage looks thin
Two areas stand out. First, thin brick, which sees heavy use in interiors and reclads, would benefit from product‑specific EPDs tied to named plants. Second, the stone detailing and stone partner lines mentioned on the site also lacked obvious EPDs in public view on December 19, 2025. That does not mean EPDs do not exist, only that they were not easy to find in the places submittal teams look first.
Quick wins that move spec odds
Pick a high‑volume clay brick family and publish a product‑specific, Type III, externally verified EPD first. Then cascade to thin brick. Align each declaration to the PCR used most commonly by direct competitors so specifiers can compare apples to apples, and make the PDFs one click from the product pages. For Canadian pursuits that weigh alternatives like CMU or terracotta, remember that CMU has a Canadian industry EPD readily available to teams, which raises the bar on transparency in mixed‑masonry projects (CCMPA, 2025). We often see that getting even one sepcific EPD live changes the sales conversation within a single quarter.
Company sustainability signal
Canada Brick highlights continuous resource conservation efforts and a Sustainability Committee. If your team needs a corporate stance to include in a submittal cover memo, start here and pair it with the first wave of product‑specific EPDs once published. See their summary page here: About Canada Brick (Canada Brick, 2025).
Bottom line for commercial ROI
Canada Brick offers a broad, spec‑friendly brick range that already ticks many design boxes. Publishing product‑specific EPDs for one or two flagship series would unlock faster submittals on LEED v5 projects and reduce the risk of last‑mile substitutions. The cost is usually dwarfed by the revenue from one mid‑sized job, and the documentation lifts every downstream bid where transparency is now table stakes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Canada Brick publish product‑specific EPDs for its clay brick lines?
We did not find Canada Brick product‑specific EPDs publicly posted as of December 19, 2025. Their network participates in the Brick Industry Association’s 2025 industry‑average clay masonry EPD, which qualifies for LEED disclosure credits but does not carry the same counting advantage as product‑specific Type III EPDs (BIA Industry Average EPD, 2025) (USGBC Credit Library, 2024).
How many products does Canada Brick offer across brick and thin brick?
The catalog spans multiple series with colors, textures, and sizes that add up roughly to dozens of clay brick SKUs, plus additional dozens of thin brick variations. Canada Brick also highlights stone detailing and sister‑brand Arriscraft stone for combined façades (Canada Brick, 2025).
What changes in LEED v5 are most relevant to Canada Brick’s documentation?
LEED v5, ratified March 28, 2025, maintains disclosure and pushes harder on decarbonization. Product‑specific, third‑party‑verified EPDs remain the most helpful for teams completing the BPDO credit quickly, which can tilt specs in competitive categories (USGBC, 2025).
Which competing materials in Canada commonly have EPDs already?
Terracotta façades often publish product EPDs, for example NBK and Ludowici. Canadian CMU also has an industry EPD through CCMPA, which project teams can leverage on mixed‑masonry scopes (NBK, 2024) (Ludowici, 2025) (CCMPA, 2025).
About the Author
John brings a clear, research-driven perspective on the EPD, LCA and HPD space and keeps a close pulse on environmental trends and standards in North America, helping clients understand where the industry is heading and how to get there.
