Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 1 Some of the main EPD programme operators in Europe
EPD system
Operator
Web page and EPD
publication
Environmental profiles
BRE (building research
establishment)
Umwelt-Deklarationen
IBU (Institut Bauen und Umwelt
e.V.)
Déclaration
Environnementale et
Sanitaire
pour les produïts de
construction (FDE&S)
AFNOR
EPD
system
International EPD
consortium
already mentioned in the introductory chapter of this topic, which includes a new
basic work requirement (BWR 7) stating the following:
The construction works must be designed, built and demolished in such a way
that the use of natural resources is sustainable and in particular ensure the
following:
1. reuse or recyclability of the construction works, their materials and parts after
demolition;
2. durability of the construction works;
3. use of environmentally compatible raw and secondary materials in the con-
struction works.
This BWR 7 is therefore an important step to incorporate sustainability into
building products and quantify environmental information, including embodied
energy. There is obviously a need for standardization to assess this BWR, and
newly developed standards, such as the commented EN 15804:2012, are a good
step in this direction and have now to be adapted and applied to the different
construction sectors and products. In practice, the BWR 7 became mandatory on
July 2013, and since, construction products have to assess the environmental
impact and sustainable use of resources, and therefore, availability of indicators
such as embodied energy of products should become much more widespread.
Once the embodied energy of a product is sourced, the following task is to
estimate their service life, to be able to 'annualize' the embodied energy data, with
the aim of integrating with the energy performance in use stage, generally given in
annual values. For HVAC or renewable energy systems that might be used in a
project, it may be as straightforward as estimating a service life based, for
example, on manufacturer's guarantees, although it is preferable to use real-life
expectancy if national or regional data are available. For other components of a
building or a refurbishment project such as envelope and structure, life expectancy
