Hi Mike,
Great point for discussion.
Of course, it’s not possible to put requirements for all products to have EPDs yet we are at a point now that at least for the most contributing materials, you’ll have EPDs available. At the same time, by implementing such requirements in tenders, more and more manufacturers will get pushed towards creating EPDs for their products.
What can be asked in a tender is that the 5-10 most contributing materials to have EPDs (so concretes, steel, glass, insulation) etc. That implies that there would be a tender stage LCA performed to identify such materials or just pre-define which these ten materials will be.
What must be considered here is that even though simply implementing EPDs as a requirement, won’t be enough. There must be a full set of low-carbon procurement requirements where each one would complement the other. That is because the fact that a product has an EPD does not automatically make it a “Better product for the environment”. It has to be ensured that “Greenwashing” is avoided at all costs, so implementing additional measures would help greatly in achieving this. For example, if we were to implement preset carbon intensity targets (i.e. XYZ kgCO2/m2 etc), that would guide a) designers to perform LCAs and optimize their designs and b) manufacturers to improve their processes instead of simply producing EPDs just to be compliant with a requirement.
At One Click LCA we recently published a report that provides such suggestions for Investors and Developers to reduce embodied carbon. The report can be downloaded from the link below:
In page 32 you can find construction and procurement phase requirements. In the Annexes you can find sample language to be used, key intent behind each requirement and sample deliverables asked (example in the screenshot below).
In Annex E you’ll find Carbon limit values for different typologies (apartments, offices, etc.)