Environmental product declaration of ceramic roof tiles: A case study of information requirements within the life cycle

Authors

Abstract

Sustainable construction involves the minimum environmental impacts along the life cycle of materials. Environmental product declarations (EPDs) of Type III are communication tools that can contribute to sustainability efforts. This work quantifies the environmental impacts of a ceramic roof tile industry in three life cycle stages: extraction, transport, and production. The information requirements to develop an EPD according to ISO 21930, EN 15804, and ISO 14025 are presented. The impact categories under consideration are global warming, ozone layer depletion, depletion of abiotic resources (elementsand fossil fuels), eutrophication, acidification, and photochemical oxidation. The results of this study identify the firing process of the production stage as the most relevant in terms of environmental impacts. Specific data from the year 2007 and 2013 of a single production site was used in order to observe the major differences in this period. Our findings suggest that EPDs may provide rich information to the supply chain of construction materials, besides the improvements derived from changes in technology and fuel. However, data quality should be a main concern to ensure trust in EPDs.

Keywords

Ceramic roof tile, sustainability, environmental impact, life cycle assessment (LCA), environmental product declaration (EPD)

Subject

sustainability, information systems

Conference

Energy for Sustainability (EfS 2015), Sustainable Cities: Designing for People and the Planet, Coimbra, May 2015