Verification of Environmental Product Declarations now also at SKZ
For more than 18 years, SKZ Plastics Center has been preparing Life Cycle Assessments, Product Carbon Footprints and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for plastic products. Standard-compliant testing of sustainability assessments is also part of SKZ's services. Since September of this year, the Institut Bauen und Umwelt e. V., the German program holder for EPDs, has also been drawing on this expertise and has appointed SKZ life cycle assessment expert Dr. Jan Werner as an EPD auditor.
Dr. Jan Werner, LCA expert and EPD auditor at SKZ. (Photo: Luca Hoffmannbeck, SKZ)
Institut Bauen und Umwelt appoints Dr. Jan Werner as verifier
Interest in EPDs in the building sector has been growing steadily. However, LCA experts who have extensive experience in assessing plastic products and who can prepare or review EPDs are still rare. "We are therefore very pleased to be able to expand our range of sustainability assessment services. We want to ensure the quality of EPDs for plastic products through sound testing and thus avoid green washing," says Dr. Jan Werner, head of the Sustainable and Circular Products research group. Werner, who has worked at SKZ for nine years and is an expert in sustainability assessment in the plastics industry, has now been appointed as a verifier for the Institut Bauen und Umwelt.
EPDs increasingly in demand
EPDs according to ISO 14025 are the established communication format for the sustainability impacts of building products. In Germany alone, the Institut Bauen und Umwelt e. V. has published more than 2,500 EPDs. The documents are increasingly being requested in tenders for construction projects and can become a decisive criterion in procurement decisions. "The growing importance of the issue is also reflected in the number of requests for EPDs from the SKZ, which has risen significantly in recent years," says Dr. Hermann Achenbach, Head of Sustainability and Environmental Services.
SKZ performs audits of all life cycle assessments
In addition to EPD verification and EPD preparation, SKZ also calculates and verifies all Life Cycle Assessments according to ISO 14040/44 and Product Carbon Footprints according to ISO 14067 / GHG Protocol and creates tools for independent calculation of the environmental impact of products.
More about SKZ's sustainability and circular economy activities
