Publication fees for Rakennustieto Oy. Pricing policy after January 1,2025, no annual fee:
If the products are similar enough to be presented with in one declaration, those can form a product groups:
Component EPD tool approved by Rakennustieto. The tool is valid for 3 years for drawing together EPDs for publication and for results for project deliveries. Invoicing is possible to be agreed for the three year period. Packages for publishing the EPDs can be purchased also afterwards.
EPD tool and 3 EPDs approved by the principal committee 42:
EPDs compiled using approved (principal committee 42/18) EPD tool:
Pre-EPD for product that does not fulfill theone year minimum production period.
Pre-EPD publicationis 55 % of the normal price of the same type of publication (see above). ThePre-EPD is valid for 1,5 years.
Included in the EPD publication fee:
Additional fees:
Fees for mutual recognition publication within the Nordic EPD Programs
Rakennustieto Oy is registered for VAT purposes. Value added tax is added to invoices if applicable. In case of invoicing VAT registered customer located in other EU member state, the invoice is VAT 0% and reverse charge applies. In case the customer is located outside the EU and is considered as taxable person, the invoicing is VAT 0%. Rakennustieto Oy reserves the right to change the fees.
The manufacturer of a construction product can make a declaration
Rakennustieto EPDs are made primarily for “business-to-business” use. The declarations are Type III EPDs, i.e., they provide quantified environmental information about the life cycle of a product to enable comparison between products that perform the same function at the building level. The life cycle assessment has been carried out in accordance with EN ISO 14044 and the construction sector-specific amendments contained in EN 15804 (e.g., system boundaries, modularity, etc.).
EPDs contain all the information that, according to the EN 15804 standard, must be presented in EPDs in communication between companies. They can be produced by one or more organisations for one product or a product group containing similar products. Product information and environmental impact calculations are presented in EPDs as defined in the standard.
What are the uses of EPD information?
The quality and quantity of environmental information vary considerably. EPDs guarantee companies a reliable source of environmental information on construction products. All product declarations bearing the Rakennustieto EPD code are verified by a third party. The verification ensures that the information is
Environmental information of products can be used for comparisons at the building level during planning, when the products are fulfilling the same functional and technical requirements. It is important that the building’s entire life cycle be taken into account in all comparisons at the building level. In this case, primary EPD information includes technical and functional properties and related requirement levels as well as environmental information.
The information declared in Rakennustieto EPDs can be used as source of information for purposes such as RTS Environmental Classification, LEED, BREEAM, DGNB and other assessment, certification and quality control tools for buildings.
Yes. All Rakennustieto EPDs have been drawn up in accordance with EN 15804:A2 2019 (or EN15804: 2012), RTS PCR and product group-specific standards. Therefore, they can be used within the EU. The EN standard differs slightly from the corresponding ISO standard, so Rakennustieto EPDs do not necessarily cover all aspects of information that is needed in e.g. Japan and USA. However, for example, LEED v4 also approves EPDs according to EN 15804.
The EPD operation of Building Information have been audited by ECO Platform and meets all the requirements se for the operation.
Rakennustieto Oy is publishing the EPDs in its website. In addition to that, the EPD information can be published in ILCD+EPD dataformat in the ECO Platform ECO Portal.
Companies have also the possibility to get the Rakennustieto EPD listed in Building Information’s product information service (Rakennustiedon Tuotetieto) and publish the carbon footprint information there.
You can search Rakennustieto EPDs from below. Mobile version can be found here
Rakennustieto EPD general rules
Rakennustieto EPD Guideline (updated 18.2.2021)
Protocol for the preparation of environmental declarations
Samples
Rakennustieto EPD Sample for Plaster (SFSEN15804:2019, version 260820)
Rakennustieto EPD Sample for Wood (SFSEN15804:2019, version 060820)
Verification documents
Application for verifiers (updated 4.11.20)
EPD-tool verification
Rakennustieto EPD Guideline – Appendix A – Verification of EPD-tools (updated 26/08/20)
EPD-tool verification checklist
Rakennustieto c-PCR-documents
c-PCR 001 Ventilation components
c-PCR 002 Electrical cables and wires
c-PCR 001 Photovoltaic modules
Can I publish an Rakennustieto EPD in several languages?
EPD can be published as translation to several languages, but the publication needs to be done either in Finnish or in English.
Is there an annual fee on the Rakennustieto EPD?
The publication fee is the only fee that you pay to Building Information Ltd for the publication of an EPD. The EPD is valid for five years (pre-EPD is for one and half year). There are no annual fees or similar continuous charges. If the data changes so much that it needs reapproval from the technical committee, there is a charge on that.
Can I include several products in one Rakennustieto EPD?
It is possible to report more than one product with one EPD. This can be done either with several result tables or with a set of scaling factors (for example different dimensions of the same material). If there are several products in one EPD, the readability can suffer, and one choice is to publish more than one EDP document from the same study and background report. If you are wondering, please, contact us at epd@rakennustieto.fi .
When does a change in the dataset requires Rakennustieto EPD to be re-verified (and reapproved in technical committee)?
Cases where for example there are changes in the process equipment, raw material or energy source (for example from national average to green energy) that change the GWP total A1-A3 is more than ±10 % (as said in the EN 15804: “An EPD shall only be reassessed and updated as necessary to reflect changes in technology or other circumstances that could alter the content and accuracy of the declaration”). In these cases, there might be several changes in the indicator tables, but the validity dates remain the same and it is considered as one approval in the technical committee.
When does a change in the dataset require Rakennustieto EPD to be re-approved (without a re-verification)?
cases where for example theamount of recycled material changes in raw material (as said in the EN 15804: “An EPD shall only be reassessed and updated as necessary to reflect changes in technology or other circumstances that could alter the content and accuracy of the declaration”). In these cases, there might be several changes in the indicator tables, but the validity dates remain the same and it is considered as one approval in the technical committee.
What changes can be made without re-approval of the technical committee?
During the five years validity time there can happen a lot. For example new contact persons and contact details, changes in company or product names. This type of update is done free of charge, at the moment.
Product grouping
If the products are from the same production site and the differences are quite small between the products, you have some options.
a) The first option of grouping is that you calculate and declare an average of the products. This way the allocation for example electricity on the production and the amount of side products is minimal, sometimes those are measurable only at the production line or even at the site level (A1-A3 GWP total needs to be within ±10 % in this case).
b) The second option would be to choose a representative product and calculate all production by that and state in the EPD the reason this has been selected (for example ‘this product is XX % of all production’). This already needs some more allocations, and the results should be within ±10 %.
c) One possible option could be to use the worst-case of all products (by selecting the worst values for each indicator), this can also include higher variation of results.
Can I use our company graphical guidelines in Rakennustieto EPD?
EPD can follow graphical guidelines of company or from the tool. The contents of the EPD are defined in the standard and in the PCR document, but the graphical design can be chosen freely. Sometimes the EPD goes through graphical design after it has been approved to be published.
I have a private label product. Can it have an EPD for it?
It is possible to publish an EPD for a private label product*) based on the EPD for the original manufacturer of the product. The EPD of the original / branded product needs to be published by us in Rakennustieto and the private label EPD will share the same expiration date. For the private label EPD we give a discount on the publication fee.
*) A private label product means a product that is manufactured (and quite often marketed as original brand) by another company than yours.
Mass balance approach (MBA) and the EPD
MBA is not allowed to be used in the Environmental Product Declarations at the moment. There is not yet consensus over the issue and discussions are ongoing in both CEN TC350 WG3 and ECO Platform about this. You can read more about this from the ECO Platform position statements https://www.eco-platform.org/position-statements.html
Mass balance approach means calculation, in which some raw material flows with specified characteristics (for example recycled content, biobased material etc.) of a product are allocated to the products not by the tracked average content nor by the tracked physical content at the moment of the production but on a theoretical basis, resulting part of the production with a higher content than would be possible otherwise. This theoretical basis is called the “mass balance model: credit method” in ISO 22095, which describes various chain of custody approaches.
Here is an example how MBA works: a site has, as an example, only 5% of its input with the specified characteristic which physically is actually spread across all products equally. Using the MBA it would be possible to allocate this 5% theoretically so that 5% of its production has 100% of the specified characteristic, and 95% of the production has 0% of the specified characteristic.
How to treat a NEW packaging containing biogenic carbon in the EPD?
Scenario 1: Wooden pallet/wood-based packaging enters into the system under study as a new pallet and is to be re-used as a packaging material:
When it enters the system (in A3 as packaging), the packaging carries 100% of all burdens of the manufacturing of the pallet. It has full biogenic CO2 content (-kgCO2e) and full renewable energy content (+MJ).
As it exits the system in A5 (as a packaging to be reused), it releases the entire biogenic CO2 content (+kgCO2e) and the full renewable energy content needs to be balanced here (-MJ) as Primary Energy resources (PER) used as material. Also the transport to the next use should be here.
In module D of the EPD it should show the net benefits of pallet which will replace a new pallet and also some burdens from the repair of the earlier used pallet to replace a new pallet are included (0-5% from burdens of manufacturing of a new pallet, thus resulting at least 95% savings for manufacturing for the next life cycle).
Scenario 2: Wooden pallet/wood-based packaging enters into the system under study as a new pallet and is to be recovered by its energy content in the next life cycle:
When it enters the system, the packaging carries 100% of all burdens of the manufacturing. It has full biogenic CO2 content (-kgCO2e) and full renewable energy content (+MJ).
As it exits the system in A5, it releases the full biogenic CO2 content (+kgCO2e) and the full renewable energy content needs to be balanced here (-MJ) as Primary Energy resources (PER) used as material (chipped for recovery). The transportation to the energy recovery and burdens from the chipping/other processing belong to here.
In module D of the EPD, it should show the net benefits of energy recovery. The full Biogenic CO2 content (expressed as -kg CO2eq/kg) is inherited again back to wood material, meaning that the release of Biogenic CO2 content in energy production will be resulting net zero Biogenic CO2 emissions.
If there is a share ending to landfill (i.e. pieces broken beyond reparation), similar reasoning as in scenario 2 applies.
The so called "1/10" rule is from PEF method, it is not in line with EN 15804+A2, meaning that all impacts from manufacturing of e.g. a new wooden pallet should be addressed to it = i.e. attributional LCA/cut-off approach.
How to treat a RE-USED packaging containing biogenic carbon in the EPD?
Scenario 1: Wooden pallet/wood-based packaging enters into the system under study as re-used and is to be re-used again as a packaging material in the next life cycle:
When it enters the system, the packaging carries 0-5% of all burdens of the manufacturing (the possible repairs, see question about new packaging). It has full biogenic CO2 content (-kgCO2e) and full renewable energy content(+MJ).
As it exits the system in A5 (as a packaging to be reused), it releases the full biogenic CO2 content (+kgCO2e) and full renewable energy content needs to be balanced here (-MJ) as Primary Energy resources (PER) used as material. Also the transport to the next use should be here.
In module D the EPD should show only minor benefits of the reused pallet which will replace a re-used pallet and also some burdens from the repair of the earlier used pallet to replace new pallet are included (0-5% from burdens of manufacturing of a new pallet).
Scenario 2: Wooden pallet / wood packaging enters into the system under study as re-used and is to be recovered by its energy content in the next life cycle:
When it enters the system, the packaging carries 0-5 % of all burdens of the manufacturing. It has full biogenic CO2 content (-kgCO2e) and full renewable energy content (+MJ).
As it exits the system in A5, it releases the full biogenic CO2 content (+kgCO2e) and full renewable energy content needs to be balanced here (-MJ) as Primary Energy resources (PER) used as material (chipped for energy recovery). The transportation to the energy recovery and burdens from the chipping/other processing belong to here.
In module D the EPD should show the net benefits of energy recovery. The full Biogenic CO2 content (expressed as -kg CO2eq/kg) is inherited again back to wood material, meaning that the release of Biogenic CO2 content in energy production will be resulting net zero Biogenic CO2 emissions.
If there is a share ending to landfill (i.e. pieces broken beyond reparation), similar reasoning as in scenario 2 applies.
How do I acquire an EPD?
Quite often companies use an LCA practitioner on the EPD project. The tools usually used in the LCA are not on open access and it is not trivial to use them at the first time. We at Rakennustieto have a list of LCA practitioners we have worked with, but it is not comprehensive.
It is good to select the publisher already in the beginning, so that the instructions given in the Product Category Rules (PCR) can be followed from the start. The PCR documents give more specific instructions than the standard, as the standard needs to be so general that it works in all the situations with all possible products. Quite often the PCR contains instructions about the possible scenarios to use in some situations (like transportation on module A4 or on the energies to use in the calculations).
After the LCA is ready, the EPD itself and a project report are prepared from the LCA. The project report is for the verification and it is not published but used by the verifier to see the quality of the data sources and that the standard and PCR are followed.
After the verification the EPD (and accompanying documents) are sent to us via application portal for publication. We at Rakennustieto make a final check on the EPD before publishing it on our website and on the ECO Platform.