EPDS (long questionnaire)

The Environmental Performance Data Sheet was prepared by the Centre for Design for Environment Australia in 2001, to provide a common reporting format and basis for data collection that manufacturer's and suppliers could fill in to enable a streamlined Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to be done. LCA studies are one of the best ways of accurately identifying a product's or material's environmental impacts.

Click here to download a sample of a completed questionnaire in PDF form.

The following is a press release sourced from SPECnews Australia #26 Winter 2001 ( http://www.natspec.info/Toolbox/Home/home.html)

Life cycle analysis study finished

The following comes from the Executive Summary.

“The aim of the ‘Greening the building life cycle’ project was to improve the environmental performance of the building and construction sector, by promoting life cycle assessment (LCA) as a tool to assess the environmental impacts of building materials and building systems in Australia.

The following outcomes are all part of the Building LCA website developed as part of the project:

• Background Report – detailed analysis of available tools and data for undertaking LCA
• Tools Matrix – categorises building LCA tools into six groups and ranks them according to a range of criteria
• 5 detailed case studies demonstrating the application of LCA in the building and construction sector
• 27 embodied energy case studies of different building types
• 31 short green building case studies
• A ‘How to undertake LCA’ question and answer tool to guide users
• Environment(al) Performance Data Sheet (EPDS) – a framework for collecting producer specific data for use in LCA
• Detailed glossaries of terminology, and explanations of LCA methods integrated throughout the website; and
• A series of one-day courses in building LCA are being delivered in five different states.

LCA is providing a means by which builders and designers can assess the validity and usefulness of the ‘green’ materials, products, and design approaches which are currently on offer. In this way LCA adds confidence in design and product/material sourcing decisions.

Given this role, it is critical that the users of LCA are able to have confidence in the methods and data, which are involved in applying LCA. Specifically this means that:
users of LCA need training and information on the methods and limits to LCA, including awareness of the provisions and limitations of the international standards; and
the supply of data from both a national reporting level for major commodities, as well as from individual product producers, needs to be supported.

In the area of Life Cycle Assessment there are a number of excellent tools, however none are actually commercially available at the moment. The best of these is LCAid – a world-class LCA tool produced by the Department of Public Works and Services (DPWS) in NSW. We recommend that Environment Australia and the Australia Greenhouse Office co-ordinate with DPWS to affect the release of LCAid for public use.

There are a number of valuable tools and rating schemes, which are not full LCA tools, which apply to specific parts of the life cycle of buildings (EcoTect, Cheetah, CheeMix, Nathers, Greenhouse Rating Scheme, etc.).We recommend that existing tools and rating schemes should clearly define and make known the stages of their life cycle they apply to and the stages for which they do not apply. The development of new tools, rating schemes or design guides should make clear from the outset what aspect of the life cycle they will apply to.

Current data availability in the public arena for undertaking LCA is very poor. Outside the public arena there is a moderate level of data being held by research groups, companies, and government agencies, which is being applied in LCA. The Environmental Performance Data Sheet (EPDS) is a framework, loosely modelled off the Material Safety Data Sheet, to provide a consistent and understandable framework for companies wishing to supply environmental data, relating to their product. We recommend that the EPDS framework be trialled on different groups of manufacturers, before being implemented as a pilot program on a number of green building projects.

LCA Inventory data were developed to a draft stage in the Australian LCA Inventory Data Project undertaken in 1998 and 1999. We recommend the data be finalised and released to support the application of LCA in the building and construction area, including in formats compatible with LCAid.

In addition to this we recommend that activities under the Greenhouse Strategy Measure 4.17, be generalised to include all relevant environmental flows and be implemented for materials and services not covered or poorly covered in the Australian LCA Inventory Data Project.

The building industry in Australia is spending A$25 billion per annum on maintenance and construction. An investment of 0.1% on background research and development for building LCA tools to support this advice would equate to a budget of $625,000 per annum. We recommend that investments in research, development and implementation in LCA tools and data for the building and construction section be seen in the light of overall investments in that sector.”