Globe Union: faucets, fixtures, and the EPD opening

Globe Union in one glance

Globe Union Industrial Corp. designs and manufactures sanitary vitreous china, faucets, showerheads, and accessories with vertically integrated plants across Asia and North America. The Gerber brand anchors its North American go‑to‑market, including a vitreous china facility in Saltillo, Mexico. The company publishes an annual ESG report outlining governance and certifications like ISO 14001 and 45001 (Globe Union Sustainability Reports, 2024).

What they actually sell into projects

Across residential and light‑commercial work, Globe Union’s catalog spans toilets and tanks, lav and kitchen faucets, shower systems, handshowers, drains, and bath accessories. Gerber’s avalanche, viper, and maxwell toilet families plus broad faucet lines show a practical, spec‑friendly portfolio for multifamily, hospitality select‑service, healthcare outpatient, and education. It’s a mix of value gear and durable workhorses rather than boutique one‑offs.

Portfolio breadth, in plain terms

Distributors list dozens of toilets and many faucet collections, with variants by flow rate, trim and finish. Counting configurations, total SKUs likely lands in the hundreds. That is plenty of surface area where one missing document can knock a product from a shortlist when teams are tallying embodied‑carbon and disclosure requirements under current owner standards and LEED v5 pathways.

EPD coverage today

As of December 25, 2025, we did not find publicly available, third‑party verified product‑specific EPDs for Gerber or Globe Union in the operator libraries most specifiers use. If an internal EPD effort exists, it does not appear to be published where design teams can easily reference it during submittals. That creates friction the moment an RFP or owner standard asks for a Type III declaration.

Why this matters commercially

On projects targeting LEED v5, product‑specific declarations help teams avoid defaulting to conservative estimates that penalize selections without EPDs. In practice, that means a faucet or toilet without a published, verifiable EPD must compete harder on price and brand familiarity, while a comparable product with an EPD slides into the spec with fewer questions. Winning the paperwork saves time for everyone.

The competitive scoreboard

Several direct competitors already publish EPDs that specifiers can pull in seconds:

• TOTO lists validated EPDs for commercial lavatory faucets and smart fixtures with validity into 2029 (EPD International, 2024) and makes faucet series available in the Transparency Catalog with third‑party verification through NSF (Transparency Catalog, 2025).
• Hansgrohe provides IBU‑verified EPDs across multiple product categories, covering roughly 1,400 to 1,700 SKUs depending on release year, and states all are publicly downloadable from IBU (Hansgrohe Group, 2023).
• Kohler’s site lets users filter and download EPD‑tagged products directly, showing 200+ items live as of late 2025 (Kohler, 2025).

When owners or GCs need to substantiate embodied‑carbon reporting quickly, the path of least resistance moves toward brands with readily accessible, current documents.

A likely best seller without an EPD, and the risk

Gerber’s Avalanche line is a staple in budget‑sensitive multifamily and light commercial. Without a published EPD, it will face head‑to‑head comparisons against toilets from competitors where a declaration is one click away. Example alternatives a specifier might prefer purely on documentation readiness include several Kohler bathroom fixtures with downloadable EPDs and TOTO’s commercial faucets with active EPD listings (Kohler, 2025; EPD International, 2024). That preference is not about performance, it’s about submittal speed and audit‑ready proof.

Fastest‑win coverage map

If resources are tight, prioritize where Globe Union sells most volume and where PCRs are clear.

1. Toilets and basins using sanitary ceramics Part B PCRs offered by major operators. These are mature categories with well‑trodden verification paths.
2. Commercial lav faucets leveraging current North American faucet PCRs used by competitors like TOTO, which simplifies comparability during review.
3. Shower trims and handshowers as follow‑ons to round out typical bathroom packages, so entire room sets carry EPDs instead of piecemeal gaps.

Pick one reference year, centralize utility and materials data collection, and sequence plants by revenue weight so published EPDs land where they unlock the most specs first. The data wrangling is the slow part. A white‑glove partner that takes that off engineering’s plate is usually the speed unlock, not more analyst headcount.

Where Globe Union’s ESG story can help

Globe Union already publishes ESG materials and maintains ISO systems. That institutional muscle can shorten evidence gathering for LCAs, and auditors like seeing that foundation. Link the first published EPDs from Gerber’s high‑run models to a short sustainability narrative and place both on the product pages. Make it impossible for sepcifiers to miss.

Closing thought

Globe Union builds the right kinds of products for high‑volume projects. The gap is not hardware, it’s proof. Competitors have turned paperwork into an advantage. Close the EPD gap on the top sellers first, then expand across suites. The payoff is fewer substitutions, smoother submittals, and a portfolio that is as easy to specify as it is to install.