The European standard that sets the common rules for Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) of construction products: they measure, in a verified and comparable way, environmental impacts over the life cycle. It is the infrastructure underpinning building LCA, the Minimum Environmental Criteria and the EU Taxonomy. Protected technical standard: its logic is described, not reproduced.
It applies to the drawing-up of EPDs for construction products and, indirectly, to the environmental assessment of buildings (EN 15978), the Minimum Environmental Criteria and embodied-carbon criteria. It is voluntary, but in practice required by green procurement and certifications.
It sets the common European rules for drawing up Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) of construction products. An EPD communicates, in a verified and standardised way, a product's environmental profile over its life cycle, based on an LCA and shared product-category rules, so that declarations are consistent and comparable. The standard structures impacts by life-cycle stages — from production to end of life, plus benefits beyond the boundary — and defines the environmental indicators, the declared unit and the system boundaries.
An EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) is a verified document that measures and communicates a product's environmental impacts over its life cycle, under common rules. UNI EN 15804 is the standard that sets those rules for construction products, so that the EPD of a brick and that of an insulant 'speak the same language'.
The standard organises impacts by the product's life stages: production (extraction and manufacture), transport and installation, use and maintenance, end of life (demolition, recovery, disposal), plus the benefits beyond the system boundary (for example recycling). It is the framework — known as modules A–D — that lets you move, by summing up, from the product to the whole building (with EN 15978).
For each stage the standard requires quantifying a set of environmental indicators — first of all the global warming potential (embodied carbon) — referred to a declared unit (for example 1 m² of panel). Only with the same category rules, unit and boundaries are the figures of two EPDs comparable.
The most common mistake is comparing two EPDs out of context. They are comparable only if based on the same category rule, the same unit and the same boundaries, and ideally at building level (EN 15978), where the real function counts. Likewise, stopping at the production stage alone ('cradle-to-gate') ignores use and end of life: embodied carbon must be read over the whole cycle.
UNI EN 15804 is the infrastructure that makes the sustainability of materials measurable and comparable: it feeds building LCA, the Minimum Environmental Criteria, the EU Taxonomy and environmental certifications. For an architecture that declares sustainability, the EPD is the proof: it turns the adjective 'ecological' into a third-party-verified figure.
An Environmental Product Declaration: a verified document communicating a product's environmental impacts over the life cycle, under the common rules of UNI EN 15804.
To give common rules so that construction-product EPDs are consistent and comparable; it provides the core product-category rule.
No: the EPD declares impacts transparently, it does not judge them. The assessment comes from a correct comparison, at equal function and rules.
Only if based on the same category rule, declared unit and system boundaries, ideally at building level. Out of context, the comparison is misleading.
The EPD is the data source: it feeds the building LCA, the Minimum Environmental Criteria and the EU Taxonomy criteria on embodied carbon and circular economy.