If you work in construction, architecture, or sustainability, chances are you've come across an Environmental Product Declaration. You may have even submitted one. But let’s be honest — how well do you actually understand what’s inside?
And why does it matter to the construction industry more than ever?
The Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is often treated like a formality — just another document in the ever-growing sustainability, climate change, 'net zero' folder. We get it. “EPD” sounds like something you file and forget. But in reality, it’s one of the most valuable tools you have for sustainable decision-making in the built environment. Dig a bit deeper and you’ll find that an EPD is a treasure chest of critical data: lifecycle emissions, resource usage, impact scores, and more. It's meant to inform smarter sourcing, boost transparency, and help reduce the environmental impact of the built environment.
Let’s break it down.
If you work in construction, architecture, or sustainability, chances are you've come across an Environmental Product Declaration. You may have even submitted one. But let’s be honest — how well do you actually understand what’s inside?
And why does it matter to the construction industry more than ever?
The Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is often treated like a formality — just another document in the ever-growing sustainability, climate change, 'net zero' folder. We get it. “EPD” sounds like something you file and forget. But in reality, it’s one of the most valuable tools you have for sustainable decision-making in the built environment. Dig a bit deeper and you’ll find that an EPD is a treasure chest of critical data: lifecycle emissions, resource usage, impact scores, and more. It's meant to inform smarter sourcing, boost transparency, and help reduce the environmental impact of the built environment.
Let’s break it down.
An EPD is a standardized, third-party-verified document that provides transparent and comparable information about the environmental impact of a product over its life cycle. It’s not marketing fluff. It’s data-backed, lifecycle-based environmental information.
You can think of it like a nutrition label — but for construction products. Instead of calories and carbs, you’re looking at:
And that’s just the start.
Because buildings have impact. Big impact. The construction and building sector is responsible for nearly 40% of global CO₂ emissions. More and more clients, regulators, and certification systems (like BREEAM and LEED) are requiring evidence-based environmental data.
EPDs give you the power to:
In short: EPDs aren’t optional anymore. They’re essential.
There are thousands of EPDs out there. Some are PDFs, some are spreadsheets, some follow slightly different regional and international rules. They’re published in different languages (like Spanish or Italian), with different scopes, structures, and assumptions.
Reviewing, verifying, and adapting just one EPD can take hours. Doing it at scale — for all the materials in a large project or across your supply chain — could eat up thousands of hours. That’s time your sustainability team doesn’t have. And that’s where Ecometrix comes in.
Our Cicero platform is designed to do the heavy lifting for you. Cicero scans, decodes, and verifies environmental data — like EPDs — so you don’t have to.
We’re currently processing and quality-checking over 100 new documents every week. That’s thousands of data points translated into searchable, comparable, and project-ready insights — all available through an intuitive dashboard or downloadable via API.
With Cicero, you can:
In short: You get verified data that’s easy to understand, easy to share, and easy to act on.
The demand for transparency in construction is only going to grow. From EU regulatory changes (like CSRD) to stricter building certifications and carbon reporting expectations, environmental data is no longer a “nice to have.” It’s a cost of doing business — and a competitive advantage when used well.
Cicero saves you time, which saves you money. More importantly, it helps you make sourcing and design decisions that are backed by real, trustworthy data — not just best guesses.
So the next time someone asks, “What’s an EPD?”, you can say: “A goldmine of insight — if you’ve got the right tools.”