International Code Council Selected for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Grant to Advance Environmental Product Declarations

This month, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) selected the International Code Council to receive $3.5 million in funding through the EPA’s Reducing Embodied Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Construction Materials and Products Grant Program.

ICC Evaluation Service (ICC-ES), a member of the Code Council family of solutions, will use this grant funding to generate Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) in partnership with the states of Washington and Oregon.  

EPDs are designed to meet the global market demand for science-based, transparent, quality-assured information about product environmental performance. Based on Life Cycle Assessment, EPDs are rapidly becoming a key component of the material selection process, particularly in the building sector. 

An EPD offers enhanced transparency about the environmental impacts of products by adhering to established international standards. This allows architects, engineers, general contractors, specifiers, and other stakeholders to make well-informed, responsible product choices. 

“EPDs are an important mechanism for reducing the climate impacts of buildings and aid designers, contractors and code officials in determining which building materials are the most sustainable,” said Code Council Vice President of Innovation Ryan Colker. “We commend the EPA for realizing the value of EPDs and look forward to working with manufacturers throughout the Pacific Northwest to expand their availability.”

Through the Pacific Northwest (PNW) EPD Partnership, the project focuses on developing facility-specific EPDs for concrete, asphalt, steel, wood and emerging products such as salvage wood and roofing. This partnership will take a collaborative approach to significantly improve the availability and quality of facility-specific, third-party verified EPD’s for building products and materials made and used in Oregon, Washington and the greater PNW region. This project intends to provide more than 200 manufacturers in the PNW with free support to develop more than 1,000 new EPDs. 

In addition to providing free EPD verification, the project includes a three-pronged approach to expand EPD availability and use: training on materials, developing a structural wood EPD tool and providing technical support for emerging products to develop and verify EPDs. This project will also have an education, outreach and technical assistance component, primarily focused on businesses producing building materials. 

“Low-carbon construction strategies are an important part of our work to decarbonize buildings and support the transition to a clean energy future,” said Assistant Director of the Washington State Commerce Energy Division Michael Furze. “This funding will help us implement Washington’s Buy Clean and Buy Fair policy and encourage the development of regional partnerships that advance the transition to low-carbon construction.”

“This funding will bring expertise and tools to support hundreds of construction material manufacturers serving our region to assess and disclose – and ultimately, reduce – the environmental impacts of their products,” said Built Environment Specialist with Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Rita Haberman. “This will strengthen work Oregon DEQ and our partners have been doing to bolster the development of EPDs for nearly a decade.”

To learn more about EPD’s, visit ICC-ES webpage here.