Research article
Mapping diffusion of Environmental Product Declarations released by European program operators

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2018.09.004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The diffusion of EPDs, which are type III labels, was analysed.

  • The EPDs emitted by Europe-based program operators were studied.

  • The EPDs were cross-referenced with GPP actions plans and criteria.

  • Construction products and electronics are the most labelled products.

  • The countries with greater number of EPDs are France and Germany.

Abstract

In order to facilitate the adoption of green requirements in public procurement, European Commission has developed the Green Public Procurement (GPP) criteria for various typologies of products and services. Almost all GPP criteria require environmental labels as means of proof that the goods or supplies correspond to the required environmental characteristics. Among the labels required, there are type III labels, based on a life cycle assessment study.

The aim of this study is to (i) investigate to what extent a specific type III label, called Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), is spread in Europe and (ii) explore whether there is a correspondence between institutional initiatives towards GPP and the market.

This study explored the valid EPDs presented on the websites of the European program operators between September and December 2016. The identified EPDs were quantified and classified according to the programme operator, title of the reference Product Category Rule (PCR), country, language and the product based on a classification system developed by the United Nations.

In total, 4,888 EPDs were collected mainly released by the Institut Baum und Umwelt e.V. (IBU) and PEP ecopassport (PEP). The obtained results showed that countries with the greater number of EPDs are France and Germany and that construction products are the types of products labelled most. The analysis of the languages used in the EPDs showed that 45% of the identified EPDs are written in local languages. The obtained results have been cross-referenced with the national situations in terms of presence of National Action Plans (NAPs) and mandatory rules regarding GPP.

Our analysis revealed that there is correspondence between the presence of a NAP with principles towards GPP and the spread in the market of environmental labelling and that the product sectors covered by EPDs correspond to the sectors covered by GPP criteria.

Introduction

In Europe the procedure of public procurement is regulated by Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council published in 2014 (EU, 2014). Among the numerous principles and requirements reported in this Directive, it is stated that when contracting authorities intend to purchase goods or services with specific environmental characteristics they may require a specific label, based on objectively verifiable and non-discriminatory criteria, as mean of proof that the goods or supplies correspond to the required characteristics. The labels that can be used have to be established in an open and transparent procedure in which all relevant stakeholders may participate; have to be accessible to interested parties and the related requirements have to be set by a third party (article 43) (EU, 2014). Consequently, contracting authorities have to require environmental labels meeting the requirements of Directive 2014/24/EU, but at the same time companies that aim at taking part in a public tender have to extricate themselves among several labels.

At international level, labelling schemes can be classified into three typologies, namely type I, II, and III, based on the methodology used. Specific standards exist for each typology: the International Standards Organization (ISO) has published ISO 14024 for type I labelling scheme (ISO, 1999), ISO 14021 for type II labels (ISO, 2016), and ISO 14025 for type III labels (ISO, 2006). Type I environmental labelling is a scheme which awards a mark or a logo based on the fulfilment of a set of environmental criteria and type II environmental declaration is a self-declared claim made by manufacturers (ISO, 2012). Type III environmental declarations present environmental information on the life cycle of a product to allow comparisons between goods with the same function and to help purchasers and users to make informed comparisons between products. They are aimed to be used in business-to-business communication, but they can also be used in business-to-consumer communication (ISO, 2006).

In order to facilitate the adoption of green requirements in line with Directive 2014/24/EU, European Commission has also developed the Green Public Procurement (GPP) criteria for various typologies of products and services (EC, 2018a). With reference to the environmental characteristics of products or services, almost all GPP criteria refer to type I labels whereas some GPP refer to type III labels (Dodd et al., 2016). As reported in ISO 14025, in the practice of developing type III environmental declarations, programmes and declarations themselves are referred to using various names, among which Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) (ISO, 2006).

The elaboration process of EPDs is managed by a specific body, called the programme operator or EPD operator which in general conducts an environmental declaration programme (Ingwersen and Stevenson, 2012). The programme operator can be a company, a public authority, a scientific body or another organization. An EPD has to be created based on an appropriate set of specific rules, called Product Category Rule (PCR), which identifies and describes the process of preparing an EPD, making it comparable and verifiable (Butt et al., 2015). Besides the programme operators, also the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) has developed some European Standards to be used as PCRs recently. For instance, EN 15804:2012+A1:2013 provides core product category rules for all construction products and services and allows that EPDs of construction sector are derived, verified and presented in harmonized way (CEN, 2013). Other European Standards complementary to EN 15804 are EN 16810 (CEN, 2017a), EN 16783 (CEN, 2017b), EN 16757, (CEN, 2017c), EN 16485 (CEN, 2014) and EN 16908 (CEN, 2017d).

In this context, the debate on the relationship between environmental issues and business performance at the company level is still ongoing (Boons and Wagner, 2009, Mazzi et al., 2016) and as highlighted by Yenipazarli (2015), companies should identify more suitable ways to label their products, but they should also understand the implications, market needs, and production constraints.

Besides the introduction section, this article is organized as follows: a literature review about the evolution of the studies about EPDs and the usefulness of GPP as environmental friendly policy is presented in Section 2; the research goals are presented in Section 3; the methodology used to develop this study is described in Section 4; the results obtained are presented in Section 5 and discussed in Section 6. The study is concluded in Section 7.

Section snippets

Development of the EPDs for environmental performance measurement

Fet and Skaar (2006) presented one of the first papers about PCRs and certification procedures of labels based on ISO 14025 requirements. They aimed at demonstrating how EPDs were developed based on PCRs and in line with ISO 14025 taking into considerations examples from the furniture industry in Norway. They established an environmental database for Norwegian furniture and then prepared PCRs and EPDs for a selected product group, obtaining a consensus document for seating accommodation. The

Research goals

In recent years, different studies have explored the development and the utilization of environmental labels such as EPDs, however, as highlighted by Cheng et al. (2018), there is an overall lack of studies about GPP. There are still some weak points in the analysis of the adoption of environmental labels with reference to GPP, namely (i) the lack of studies focusing on the diffusion of the EPDs released by Europe-based programme operators after the publication of Directive 2014/24/EU and (ii)

Methodology

This study analyses the diffusion of EPDs after the publication of the European Directive 2014/24/EU and thus it is focused on EPDs released by European program operators, which represent 56% of programme operators in the world (Minkov et al., 2015).

The methodology used for this study follows the steps implemented by Ibáñez-Forés et al. (2016) for their analysis of the implementation of EPDs. Ibáñez-Forés et al. (2016) developed a twofold analysis: firstly they analysed the evolution of the

Results

The results section is structured as follows. Section 5.1 presents the total number of EPDs identified in this study released by the programme operators listed in Table 1 and the number of PCRs published; Section 5.2 shows the mapping of the identified EPDs per country with a focus on the languages used in order to evaluate the diffusion of the information and their usability; Section 5.3 shows the EPDs by sector.

Discussion

The discussion section is structured as follows. Section 6.1 is about the total number of EPDs identified in this study; Section 6.2 deals with the mapping of the identified EPDs per country and the presence of a NAP and mandatory rules; Section 6.3 concerns the EPDs by sector and GPP sectors covered by NAPs.

Conclusion

This study explored the valid type III labels presented on the websites of the European program operators between September and December 2016 with the aim of investigating to what extent EPDs were spread, identifying which were the Countries with the greater number of EPDs years later the publication of Directive 2014/24/EU and exploring whether the market is ready to fulfil the environmental requirements of Directive 2014/24/EU.

The identified EPDs were quantified and classified by the

Acknowledgements

Authors would like to express their appreciation and thanks to Carlo Trevisanello, Isabella Lotto, Paola Serventi, Sofia Manfrin and Francesco Rocco for their work and their help in the development of this study.

Declarations of interest

None

References (54)

  • Ibáñez-ForésV. et al.

    Environmental Product Declarations: exploring their evolution and the factors affecting their demand in Europe

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2016)
  • IngwersenW.W. et al.

    Can we compare the environmental performance of this product to that one? An update on the development of product category rules and future challenges toward alignment

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2012)
  • MinkovN. et al.

    Type III Environmental Declaration Programmes and harmonization of product category rules: status quo and practical challenges

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2015)
  • SariolaL. et al.

    RTS EPD’s–reliable source of environmental information of building products in Finland

    Energy Procedia

    (2016)
  • SchlanbuschR.D. et al.

    Experiences with LCA in the Nordic building industry–challenges, needs and solutions

    Energy Procedia

    (2016)
  • SteenB. et al.

    Development of interpretation keys for environmental product declarations

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2008)
  • StrazzaC. et al.

    Using environmental product declaration as source of data for life cycle assessment: a case study

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2016)
  • TarantiniM. et al.

    A life cycle approach to green public procurement of building materials and elements: a case study on windows

    Energy

    (2011)
  • TestaF. et al.

    Drawbacks and opportunities of green public procurement: an effective tool for sustainable production

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2016)
  • TestaF. et al.

    What factors influence the uptake of GPP (green public procurement) practices? New evidence from an Italian survey

    Ecol. Econ

    (2012)
  • YenipazarliA.

    The economics of eco-labeling: Standards, costs and prices

    Int. J. Prod. Econ.

    (2015)
  • ZackrissonM. et al.

    Stepwise environmental product declarations: ten SME case studies

    J. Clean. Prod.

    (2008)
  • CEN (European Committee for Standardization) 2013. EN 15804:2012+A1:2013 Sustainability of construction works -...
  • CEN (European Committee for Standardization) 2014. EN 16485 Round and sawn timber. Environmental Product Declarations....
  • CEN (European Committee for Standardization) 2017a. EN 16810 Resilient, textile and laminate floor coverings -...
  • CEN (European Committee for Standardization) 2017b. EN 16783 Thermal insulation products - Product category rules (PCR)...
  • CEN (European Committee for Standardization) 2017c. EN 16757 Sustainability of construction works. Environmental...
  • Cited by (27)

    • A comparative life cycle assessment of phytosterol and meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) oncoprotective functional food ingredients

      2022, Food Bioscience
      Citation Excerpt :

      The latter is assessed in terms of the technologies life cycle. The results of the life cycle impact assessment can be applied for development of the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) (Biswas et al., 2017, Toniolo al., 2019). An EPD is a certified method for reporting on the environmental impacts of similar products through their whole life cycle in a clear and comparable way.

    • Assessing the completeness and comparability of environmental product declarations

      2022, Journal of Cleaner Production
      Citation Excerpt :

      Thereby, this study assesses if EPDs developed within the scope of the same product category, rules, and program operator can be compared and, in case they cannot, the main reasons for that. First, we conducted a worldwide inventory of program operators according to previous research (Hunsager et al., 2014; Minkov et al., 2015; Toniolo et al., 2019). An online search was conducted and identified programs with the following required selection criteria: active program operator, English website version available, and EPD and PCR databases available for online consultation.

    • An analysis of Brazilian raw cow milk production systems and environmental product declarations of whole milk

      2022, Journal of Cleaner Production
      Citation Excerpt :

      Furthermore, there is a trend among customers, especially in the food sector, around their concern with environmental issues, which influences purchase decisions (Herbes et al., 2018), and customers have direct contact with the product (for example, going on a frequent basis to the supermarket) and being part of a business-to-consumer communication (Del Borghi et al., 2020). In this sense, EPDs of dairy products might help disseminate relevant environmental information to consumers, allowing the identification of the potential environmental impacts generated throughout the production process and in the life cycle of such products (Toniolo et al., 2019). Nonetheless, it also has a potential for the opening of new markets.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text