Holcim and Climate Earth expand environmental product declarations worldwide

The partnership announced the successful verification of the first on demand EPD generators for cement and concrete products in Europe. 

An EPD describes materials, products or components in terms of their environmental impact, based on life-cycle assessments and their functional and technical characteristics. The quantitative, objective and verified information covers the entire lifecycle of the product and constitutes an important basis for assessing sustainability in construction.

These generators complement the existing EPD generator of Climate Earth in North America (concrete and masonry block products in >900 plants) thus covering both EPD standards used across the world (EN 15804+A2 and ISO 21930).

The two EPD generators have been verified to comply with the requirements of Institut Bauen und Umwelt e.V. (IBU) and they are the outcome of a collaboration between Holcim Innovation Center and Climate Earth - this combined the industry experience of Holcim and the EPD generation know-how of Climate Earth. 

The project benefited from the advanced digital infrastructure of IBU that allowed the automatic publication of the generated EPDs in their database.

The EPD generator is already operational covering seven cement plants and 56 concrete plants across Germany and the United Kingdom, with the publication of over 400 EPDs since 2022.

In the UK all 12 of Aggregate Industries’ London Concrete plants are covered.

Edelio Bermejo, Head of Global R&D, Holcim: “This project demonstrates the value of innovation in bringing advanced EPD generation systems in the marketplace. It will enable us to provide reliable EPD data on demand to our customers, empowering them to build low-carbon in a transparent and verified way.”

Laurel McEwen, VP of EPD Services, Climate Earth: ”It was delightful working with Holcim, as we were never pushed to compromise quality or the underlying software structure. Clearly Holcim is committed to the long-term strategic value of EPDs.”

Michael Scharpf, Head Sustainable Construction, Holcim Germany: “We are happy to have piloted and participated in such an ambitious project. Our ability now to offer EPDs with bulletproof CO2 calculations for all cement and concrete to our customers is a game changer.”

Kirstin McCarthy, Director of Sustainability at Aggregate Industries UK: "We are proud to have been part of this exciting journey, which proves our commitment to be an industry leader in terms of sustainability and innovation. The EPD generator will allow fair and transparent competition within the UK cementitious industry, by demonstrating our products' performances in terms of sustainability."

Stefan Zwerenz, Head of Verification body at IBU: “With the project-specific on-demand EPDs, this project is leading the way in terms of digitalisation and scaling and the application of environmental data for sustainable construction. We are proud to have been able to realise the EPD generator together with Holcim through our digital strategy at IBU.”

This work demonstrates the commitment of Holcim and Climate Earth in facilitating the development of EPDs worldwide and facilitates Holcim commitment to transparency as part of its journey to net zero.