Product specific EPDs - VELFAC windows and doors

Q: Terminology

EPD: Environmental Product Declaration - environmental product declaration that describes a building product's environmental impact LCA: Life Cycle Assessment. A method that calculates the potential environmental impacts of a building or a product. Equivalents: Conversion term so that the environmental impact of different emissions can be compared. GWP: Global Warming Potential. The GWP index expresses the climate impact over a number of years in CO 2. PCR: A product category rule (PCR) is a set of guidelines that determine what data should be gathered and how it will be evaluated when conducting the life cycle assessment (LCA) of a product.

VELFAC EPD's

Product specific EPDs for your project

Here you can find our product-specific EPDs to be used to obtain more accurate calculation of the CO2 emissions for your project. The EPDs have been produced following a cradle-to-gate approach (environmental impact during manufacturing) so they don’t represent a complete life cycle assessment of our windows.

Download VELFAC EPD's

Get our Environmental Products Declarations for the production stage (A1–A3) of a VELFAC top-guided window with reference dimensions of 1230x1480mm. The report provides information about its impact on the environment, such as global warming potential, smog creation, ozone depletion and water pollution.

Get EPD's

Everything you need to know about VELFAC EPD

What is an EPD?

EPD is an abbreviation for Environmental Product Declaration.and reports objective, comparable and third-party verified data about products and services' environmental performance, supporting scientifically based choices and consideration as clients demand compliance with certification schemes such as BREEAM and LEED.

The report:

Declares environmental impact for a specific material per unit or per m2
Is based on an LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) of the products
Follows the EPD standard EN15804:2013+A2:2019
Must be 3rd party verified according to ISO 14025
Valid for a 5-year period

How can you compare EPDs?

Product Category Rules (PCRs). PCRs are the product category-specific requirements for conducting life cycle assessment (LCA) studies and reporting their findings through Environmental Product Declarations (EPD. The content you’ll find in an EPD varies depending on the product category, but within a category – thanks to the PCRs -, the set-up of an EPD will always be the same. This makes it easy to compare similar products, understand the environmental impact they have and make a conscious choice.

VELFAC product specific EPDs

We have produced 2 EPDs that reflect our overall window systems. In both cases, the starting point is a top-guided window with the reference dimensions 1230x1480mm:

VELFAC 200 ENERGY
VELFAC Ribo (wood/aluminium)

The product-specific EPDs from VELFAC cover:

The modules: A1-A3, C1-C4 & D
1 m ²declared unit based on the reference window

The EPDs do not cover the modules: B1-B7 (use phase).

How to read and use the EPDs?

To make the process smoother, it is possible to incorporate EPDs for estimating the CO ₂ carbon footprint of different building materials in the design phase of your project. By doing this, building materials with the lowest carbon footprint can be selected in the early phase. The availability of product specific EPDs can make the calculation more accurate, especially if compared with the use of average industry EPDs.

When calculating the carbon footprint of a whole building, usually is considered a life span of about 50 years.

The table below has been extrapolated from the VELFAC EPD documentation for a top-guided VELFAC 200 ENERGY window in wood/aluminium. The GWP ( Global warming potential) figure is an expression of how much kg CO 2 our sample window generates in the construction phase (manufacturing, disposal and recycling).

VELFAC200 EPD tabel.png

Terminology

EPD: Environmental Product Declaration - environmental product declaration that describes a building product's environmental impact

LCA: Life Cycle Assessment. A method that calculates the potential environmental impacts of a building or a product.

Equivalents: Conversion term so that the environmental impact of different emissions can be compared.

GWP: Global Warming Potential. The GWP index expresses the climate impact over a number of years in CO 2.

PCR: A product category rule (PCR) is a set of guidelines that determine what data should be gathered and how it will be evaluated when conducting the life cycle assessment (LCA) of a product.

Benefits of using VELFAC EPDs

While generating our product-specific EPDs, our production emission baseline has been mapped, giving us the opportunity to optimize our products' CO2 footprint. A good starting point for ongoing development and improvement towards more sustainable construction. Our product specific EPDs can:

Give our customers a more accurate statement of the total CO2 footprint of our windows, allowing specifiers and contractors to make informed choices when considering their project’s impact on the enviorment

Ensure a valid data basis for the enviormental impact due to 3rd party certification/verification

Help to achieve EPD and LCA credits in certification schemes, like LEED, BREEAM and others.

We can advice on how to compare EPDs, and find correlation between the LCA calculation and our own product-specific EPD.

"As VELFAC experts, we are here to answer any specific question you may have on the correlation between an LCA calculation and our EPDs. In addition to that, although enviormental product declarations should not be compared at component level, but only at a building level, we can help you compare different EPDs"

- Neil Edwards, Specification Consultant