Teamed under the North American Precast Concrete industry banner, the National Precast Concrete Association, Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute and Canadian Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute have published Environmental Product Declarations for Architectural and Insulated Wall Panels, Structural Precast Concrete and Underground Precast—each document affording architects, engineers, building owners, and other project stakeholders insight on manufactured-concrete environmental impacts.
EPD content is based on an ISO‐compliant, third party-verified Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Analysis considers all manufacturing phases, from raw material extraction to final production. Prepared according to internationally recognized protocol, EPDs are rapidly emerging among building and construction material and product interests in response to customer demand and incentives accompanying the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED v4 green building rating system and American Institute of Architects’ Architecture 2030 Challenge for Products.
NPCA, PCI and CPCI issued the industry-wide EPDs within clearly defined groups based on the precast concrete Product Category Rules (PCR). The EPDs were independently prepared by Athena Sustainable Materials Institute, Ottawa, in accordance with ISO 14025 and ISO 21930, the Product Category Rules for Preparing an Environmental Product Declaration for Precast Concrete (UN CPC 3755); and ASTM International’s EPD Program Operator guidelines. They were also independently verified by ASTM International, per ISO 14025, and Industrial Ecology Consultants, per ISO 14025 and the PCR.
The three EPDs are among early NPCA, PCI and CPCI “body of knowledge” projects supporting North American precast concrete interests. The groups envision additional development of materials or programs supporting precast-centered building codes, design guides, educational programs, certification, sustainability efforts, and research. Free copies of Architectural, Structural and Underground Precast pdfs can be obtained through the Environmental Product Declarations tab at www.pci.org/Design_Resources.
