The European General Galvanizers Association, EGGA, where Nordic Galvanizers is member, has developed an Environmental Product Declaration for galvanized steel. An EPD is a way to communicate environmental characteristics, and can be used on all kinds of products and services. Environmental Product Declaration according to the standard ISO 14025 is based on life cycle analysis.
An EPD is a good way to meet user and authorities expectations on relevant environmental information. The underlying LCA is additionally an excellent ground to further improving a product’s environmental performance. Construction of houses and infrastructure accounts for use of a large part of resources in the world. Because of that environmental issues has become increasingly important during the design and procurement. Different materials have different environmental impact per kg – but also quite different characteristics. New standards for assessing the environmental performance of the whole construction works is therefore necessary for a systematic approach with sustainable construction.
LCI data is a powerful tool when a detailed study of the products and services environmental impact throughout their life cycle should be analyzed. However, LCI data can be difficult to interpret for product users, and it is therefore more and more common to present a product’s environmental performance using an Environmental Product Declaration, EPD.
How can you measure and evaluate whether a material or product is environmentally sustainable? A large project to increase the knowledge in this area started in 2004 by galvanizers and zinc suppliers in whole Europe. The aim of the project was to examine how the hot dip galvanizing process and hot dip galvanized steel performs environmentally in comparison with other structural materials and coatings available on the market. The data collection has been updated at several occations and it now covers over 1000 tons of steel, hot dip galvanized at 66 different plants in 14 countries in Europe. The result represents the average value of a typical, individually galvanized product.
Usually an EPD is made for a particular, specific product. In this case, however, a general EPD for a hot-dip galvanized steel sheet of a given size has been made.
Read or download the EPD here: