EPD stands for ‘environmental product declaration’ and is a written declaration containing quantified information about a given set of environmental impacts based on a life-cycle analysis.
The Royal Decree on Environmental Messages provides for the creation of a federal EPD database and lays down various rules that are characteristic of EPD programmes. The EPD programme applies the requirements of the Royal Decree on Environmental Messages. The FPS of Health relies on the NBN EN ISO 14025 standard, thus acting as programme operator. The programme of the FPS of Health is named ‘Belgian EPD Programme’ or B-EPD in short.
The principal aim of the Belgian EPD programme is to provide interested organisations with a framework for developing and making available EPDs in accordance with the Royal Decree on EPDs. The B-EPD programme is applicable to building products that are placed or made available on the market in Belgium or that can be used in buildings on the Belgian territory.
The programme started on 7 December 2016.
A short introduction to the B-EPD program
Structure
The programme operator is the FPS of Health. The FPS is assisted by a steering committee, an advisory committee, an expert committee, a committee for reviewing PCR documents and an inspectors committee. More information can be found in the General programme instructions.
Verification
An EPD is in accordance with the B-EPD programme when its conformity with the Royal Decree on Environmental Messages and the General programme instructions has been verified.
This can only be done by an inspector who has registered with the programme operator in advance. Information about the procedure and its costs can be found in the reference documents.
The manufacturer is free to choose an inspector from the list of registered inspectors.
Introduction of EPDs in the TOTEM library
Since the launch of TOTEM in 2018, generic environmental impact data were used to assess the impacts of buildings and elements.
This year, TOTEM will introduce specific environmental data, declared by manufacturers through an EPD .
The EPD data will be retrieved from the Belgian B-EPD database.
The integration will take place in 2 steps, each time preceded by a test phase
- By October 2020, the validated and verified B-EPDs that have been established within the framework of EN15804+A1 will be integrated into the TOTEM library; they will be publically available until the next step.
- First semester of 2021, TOTEM will undergo a major update to comply with the standard EN15804+A2. From then on, verified and validated B-EPDs established according to the standard EN15804+A2 will be included in the TOTEM library. TOTEM will maintain this framework for 5 years.
The first test phase has now been completed. We would like to thank the federations and companies that provided us a B-EPD or data to test the integration in TOTEM for the EN 15804-A1: ECIA, Fedbeton, Isoproc, Muylle-Facon, Recticel, Reynaers, Saint-Gobain, SVK, Unilin, VMZinc and Wienerberger.
If you have other questions regarding the EPD implementation into TOTEM or if you wish to participate in the second test phase (second half of 2020) with B-EPDs according to EN15804+A2, you can contact us.
We would like to encourage all manufacturers to start creating their own B-EPD according to EN15804+A2; from 2021 these data will be publicly available for use by all TOTEM users! For specific questions regarding B-EPD you can contact the Federal Public Service of Health epd@health.fgov.be
Reference documents
- A B-EPD step by step, a summary (last update 22.06.2020)
- The general programme instructions V1.1 (last update 12.10.2017)
- Requirements for verifiers (last update 29.06.2020)
- NBN EN 15804+A1
- NBN EN ISO 14044
- B-EPD template for EN15804-A2 (last update 30.06.2020)
- Verification checklist
- NBN DTD B 08-001 : 2017, horizontaal PCR document
- final draft Horizontal PCR document (NBN/DTD)
- List of verifiers (last update 22.04.2020)
- Complimentary rules to NBN/DTD B08-001 (last update 29.06.2020)
- List of validated PCR documents (last update 30.10.2018)
Methodology
If you want to have your B-EPD used in the building tool calculator of the regional authorities (Totem), you have to use the following files when you use Simapro or Gabi.
This files are only relevant for B-EPDs according to EN 15804+A1. For EN 15804+A2 the full set of core and additional indicators of the standard are applicable.
Do you wish to register as an verifying party?
The guidelines and rates for registering can be found in the reference document ‘Requirements for verifying persons’..
Stay informed
Register via epdnews@environment.belgium.be to be informed when important news or new documents are published.
Contact
Federal Public Service (FPS) of Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment
Product Policy Department
Avenue Galilée 5/2
B – 1210 BRUSSELS
Phone number: +32 (0)2 524.97.97
E-mail: epd@environment.belgium.be