The White House and General Services Administration have marked the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)-funded low embodied carbon (LEC) construction materials procurement program pilot, noting “a dramatic increase of thousands more environmental product declarations used to identify sustainably-manufactured construction materials over the past year. EPDs are a key tool for gaining visibility into a product’s environmental impacts through its entire lifetime in a standard, third party-verified format.”
The pilot is intended to net insights into regional market availability of qualifying materials or products, and justify changes for a final set of requirements on IRA-funded GSA projects. Using the industry’s EPD library as a barometer, the agency spotlights ready mixed and manufactured concrete producers’ unrivaled response to public and private construction market demands for carbon dioxide emissions data. Since outlining the LEC construction material procurement pilot in May 2023, GSA has seen producers or manufacturers publish 17,000 EPDs for concrete, asphalt, glass and steel, which account for nearly half the U.S. manufacturing greenhouse gas emissions. Of the past year’s additions to the construction materials EPD library, 14,000 are from concrete producers, a 15 percent year-over-year increase, and 2,700 are from their peers in asphalt, equivalent to a quadrupling of declarations published through early 2023. GSA also cites increases in EPDs in most subcategories of steel, including a 60 percent boost in the number of declarations for structural steel plate. Two steel producers issued inaugural declarations.
The availability of EPDs weighs heavily on procurement decisions behind 150-plus projects and $2 billion in contracts that GSA outlined in November as part of the LEC program. In tandem with the GSA contracts, the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention is nearing announcement of recipients in a complementary grant program to support additional EPD and Product Category Rule (PCR) development across construction materials producers or manufacturers. EPA envisions grant recipients executing projects that:
- Offer material suppliers or product manufacturers assistance in producing robust EPDs;
- Yield new and/or improved critical data, analysis, or feedback for producing robust EPDs;
- Encourage development of robust, standardized PCRs that identify what data needs to be collected for EPDs, data collection and reporting methods, plus transparency and verification measures ensuring credible declarations;
- Contribute to the development of tools easing, expediting and economizing EPD preparation; and,
- Support broader EPD availability, standardization of disparate EPD systems, and future declaration integration into construction design and procurement.
Prospective grant recipients include the Concrete Masonry & Hardscapes Association, which is well positioned to assist producers with a build out of the industry’s EPD library. Recently elected CMHA Chair Sam Hoehner (Lee Building Products) reflects this month (pages 35-37) on the carbon metric value proposition—readily conveyed in a forthcoming Industry Average EPD—that block producers bring architectural, engineering and construction interests. Another EPA grant candidate is the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, which like its block, paver and manufactured stone veneer counterpart, could put the funding to good use for producers and their customers bidding GSA projects with LEC material or product procurement targets. Concrete producers’ commanding role in the past year’s EPD flourish warrants GSA and EPA attention as grant decisions are finalized. Federal agencies value strong numbers; on pilot and longer term LEC procurement matters, they have one group that stands above all others.