One of our ongoing sustainable initiatives involves acquiring an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for the MT880 meter. We aim to extend this effort to encompass all our products in the future. Greenwashing has become a prevalent concern in recent times. It is a deceptive marketing practice in which a company or organization exaggerates or falsely claims to be environmentally friendly or socially responsible in its products, services, or overall business practices. A provisional agreement has been reached between the EU Parliament and EU Council to introduce new regulations that will prohibit deceptive advertisements and enhance the quality of product information available to consumers and other stakeholders in the future.
Without reliable state-of-the-art life cycle assessments, companies are not able to make the right decision to improve their environmental performance. The Environmental Product Declaration offers transparency, objective and scientific data which are prepared based on life cycle assessment.
What is EPD?
An Environmental Product Declaration transparently reports objective, comparable, and third-party verified data about products and services’ environmental performances from a life cycle perspective.
EPDs represent a manufacturer’s dedication to quantifying and mitigating the environmental impact of their products and services, and they transparently disclose these effects. Through an EPD, manufacturers provide verifiable, unbiased data, verified by third-party entities, revealing both positive and negative aspects of their products’ environmental performance.
While the EPD serves as the ultimate report, a life cycle assessment (LCA) is the foundation of any EPD. LCA enables us to assess our product’s environmental impact throughout its entire life cycle, encompassing our entire value chain.
The outcomes are presented succinctly via various environmental indicators, including metrics like carbon dioxide emissions and Global Warming Potential per unit of declared product.
EPDs are created by adhering to Product Category Rules (PCRs), which are specific requirements for conducting life cycle assessments and disclosing the results. PCRs facilitate product comparisons within their respective categories. Our EPD was developed in accordance with the following PCRs: PCR EPDItaly 007 for electronic and electrical products and systems (Revision 3 dated 13/01/2023) and PCR EPDItaly 011 for electronic and electrical products and systems, specifically meters (Revision 0 dated 16/03/2020).
Verification process
An independent third party must conduct a verification process on the EPD before it becomes publishable. Accredited certification bodies are exclusively responsible for conducting these verifications and ensuring consistency in their methods. Publishing the EPD enables companies to transparently communicate the environmental effects of a product or service to the market.
Advantages of the EPD
- Optimizing the production processes and minimizing expenses and waste within the organization, while continuously tracking the enhancement of the ecological efficiency of products and services.
- Clearly, objectively, and transparently communicating the environmental performance across the entire production chain of a product or service.
- Elevating the corporate brand by embracing transparency towards stakeholders.
- Facilitating the exchange of information to support environmentally responsible purchases.
What is the LCA?
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a systematic and comprehensive methodology used to evaluate the environmental impacts of a product, process, or activity throughout its entire life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials to its end-of-life disposal.
LCA assesses various environmental aspects, such as energy use, resource consumption, emissions, and waste generation, to provide a holistic understanding of the environmental consequences associated with a particular product. It helps in identifying areas for improvement and guiding sustainable decision-making by quantifying the environmental burdens and benefits at each stage of the life cycle. LCA is a valuable tool for promoting environmentally responsible practices and making informed decisions to minimize the environmental footprint of products and processes.
Advantages of the LCA
LCA provides significant benefits for the producers and also for customers and society.
- Holistic perspective – LCA takes into account all stages of a product’s life cycle, including raw material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, use, and end-of-life disposal.
- Comparative analysis – LCA enables the comparison of different products, processes, or design alternatives to determine the most environmentally friendly options. This information is valuable for decision-making and sustainable product development.
- Data-driven decision making – LCA is based on scientific data and analysis, which provides a strong foundation for decision-making. It helps organizations and individuals make informed choices about how to reduce environmental impacts.
- Reduced environmental footprint – By identifying and addressing the areas with the most significant environmental impacts, LCA can help reduce the overall environmental footprint of a product or process. This can lead to resource savings and lower emissions.
- Resource efficiency – LCA can help identify inefficiencies in resource use and energy consumption, leading to resource and cost savings.
- Transparency – LCA results can be communicated to stakeholders, increasing transparency and trust. LCA can be used for eco-labeling and marketing products with low environmental impacts.
