Benchmarking and additional environmental information in ... - ANEC

For comfort aspects relevant characteristics (mechanical, physical, chemical,
thermal, acoustic properties …) shall be selected and declared for each type of
comfort (hydrothermal, acoustic, visual, and olfactory). Suitable test methods
are suggested in an Annex to the standard.
2.7.4 Presentation of results
EPD’s established according to NF P-0-010 are presented in an (almost) fixed
format with the headings indicated above coming in the same sequence. With
the requirement of reporting the inventory results in detail, the EPD’s become
very extensive being in the range of about 40 pages.
2.8 The Swedish EPD® scheme
The general requirements for environmental product declarations in the
Swedish EPD system have been defined by the Swedish Environmental
Management Council (Miljöstyrningsrådet, 2000) (MSR 1999:2). The system
has a broad scope, including common consumer products like roof boxes for
cars, cooker hoods and sanitation goods as well as B2B products like basic
metals and transformers. In total, 25 product categories have been defined so
far and different sets of product category rules have been developed within
these product groups.
2.8.1 LCA approach
The general LCA approach conforms to the requirements in the ISO 14040
series and ISO 14025.
Life cycle stages
According to MSR 1999:2, the EPD shall consider all stages from cradle-tograve.
However due to lack of detailed information on how a product is
distributed, used and handled at the end of its life cycle, the quantitative
information shall be separated for the phases that describe the results of the
LCA study from raw material acquisition to manufactured product on one hand,
and distribution to the market, product use, recovery, recycling and waste
handling on the other. Based on a quick examination of available EPD’s, this
approach is not followed in all cases. In fact, it seems like the way of presenting
results is chosen somewhat arbitrarily – perhaps as a consequence of
deviations from the general approach in the specific product category rules.
Consequential or attributional LCA
The data shall be expressed as annual average values. Plant-specific data from
manufacturing processes should always be used, and generic data should be
used in cases where they are representative for the purpose of the study, e.g.
purchase of bulk and raw materials on the spot market and in the use- or waste
handling stages. This approach is considered to be attributional.
Cut-off rules
The loss of information, as a result of omitting processes from the LCA study
can be accepted provided that the sum of the loss of information corresponds to
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