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Reporting and certifications, such as Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), play a crucial role in our collective efforts to combat climate change. Such reporting tools and certifications provide valuable information about the environmental impact of products, helping consumers and businesses make informed decisions and drive more sustainable choices. They can offer insights into a product's lifecycle, including its carbon footprint, energy consumption, and resource depletion.
Standardised metrics and transparent data enable us, the consumers, to compare products, identify more sustainable alternatives, and prioritise environmentally friendly options. Moreover, they can encourage manufacturers to optimise their production processes and make greener choices, as they strive to obtain and maintain certifications – which can be increasingly important for market access. This creates a positive ripple effect throughout the supply chain, fostering innovation, reducing emissions, and minimising waste. By leveraging certifications that are based in reporting frameworks, we can also empower policy makers to strengthen and target climate mitigation efforts, for a more sustainable and resilient future.
There are, however, also some important weaknesses in such systems.
They can have limited or inconsistent scope, meaning that essential elements may be included or excluded depending on the certification in concern or how it is applied, and that it becomes difficult to compare them. This also means that they rarely give a complete understanding of a product’s overall performance, perhaps leaving out essential elements like certain scope emissions or water usage.
These challenges are exacerbated by a general lack of standardisation, for instance in the way that certifications are verified or the ways that self-reporting is done. This can lead to further difficulties in comparison and confuse both consumers and businesses. It can also increase the risk that companies might manipulate or selectively disclose data to present a more favourable environmental profile for their products.
Lack of enforcement and oversight might also make it easier to make misleading or unsubstantiated claims, undermining the credibility and effectiveness of certifications.
And finally, the certifications can be complex and highly technical. While this is not a challenge in itself – rather, it is a given if we want robust datasets – the translation of this data into effective information can be challenging and pose risks that their accessibility is limited, particularly for small businesses or consumers who lack the resources or expertise to access and comprehend them.
Taking the mentioned points into account, this report now presents some of the most important embodied carbon-related reporting and certification methods in the building sector.
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Terms of Reference - Embodied Carbon