Location and Product

Lance

An EPD should be within the geographic range of the project - i.e. North America for US projects. We've seen some European EPDs accepted in US projects, but to be safe, it should be w/in the region. You can use a product across any BPDO credit - many products will have an EPD, and HPD and recycled content and contribute to all three credits.

Hi Tommy, 

Jumping in on this forum as I have a similar question. I have a project in North America that is using a Tarkett vinyl flooring, and we were looking into the product-specific EPD they have available (https://media.tarkett-image.com/docs/EPD_iQ_range.pdf). They indicate Europe as the geographical scope on page 5. I've been reading the LEED Guide - EPD credit for both v4 and v4.1 versions, and I don't see any indication that the EPD needs to be local. So, I was of the impression that it was fine, but I might be missing something here.

Do you mind sharing where LEED says that the EPDs need to be within the geographic range of the project? Many thanks!

Looking back, I can't track down where it officially states that - it does require the EPD to state "Names of global regions covered under the EPD" but not that it necessarily has to be the region the project is located it - which makes sense, I could have a US project, and purchase an product with a European EPD, and as long as it was produced in Europe (not a North American extension) it is covered by that EPD.

Having received a reviewer comment that an EPD produced in Europe is not valid in the USA because of the region implies that EPD reporting requirements for products in Europe are not the same as the reporting requirements in the USA and Canada. In my opinion, the standard should apply across the globe without regard to what region the material/product is manufactured. 

In general, North American and European EPDs are often not comparable because they can potentially be produced using different methodologies, product category rules (PCRs), and Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) datasets. I'm not saying GBCI won't accept a Euro EPD for the MR EPD credit, but you have to be careful if you're using EPDs to compare products and make product selection decisions, because it may not be apples to apples. We generally don't use Euro EPDs when we're doing a whole building LCA for a US project.

It's understandable that global EPDs are not acceptable for LCAs as the whole-building life cycle assessment is a cradle to grave assessment. However, for the Environmnetal Product Disclosure and Declaration credit, the EPD scope must be at least crade to gate, which covers the manufacturing process only (excluding transportation to site and beyond). If using a European EPD for a North American project, the EPD would not cover transportation to site and beyond, but includes the minimum cradle to gate scope that is required for the credit.

Has anyone recieved further context from the LEED reviewers as to why global EPDs are not accepted under this credit?