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An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a third-party verified document that reports the environmental impacts of a construction product over its life cycle, expressed per a declared unit (such as 1 kg or 1 m²). EN 15804+A2:2019 — Sustainability of construction works — Environmental product declarations — Core rules for the product category of construction products — defines the rules every EN-compliant EPD must follow. Real-Time LCA’s material library is structured around EN 15804+A2 so that EPD data flows cleanly into EN 15978 whole-building calculations.

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Datasources

Real-Time LCA reads EPD data from multiple programme operators and generic-data sources. The currently supported datasources include: See Browse materials for how to filter and select by datasource and Create materials for verified-EPD authoring.

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EN 15804+A1 vs +A2

EN 15804 was significantly revised in 2019 (+A2). The two revisions differ in:
  • Indicator set — +A2 adds new indicators and refines several existing ones, including a split of GWP-total into GWP-fossil, GWP-biogenic, and GWP-luluc.
  • Characterisation factors — +A2 aligns with the EF 3.0 characterisation method published by the European Commission.
  • Module D rules — +A2 sharpens what may be reported in module D.
Real-Time LCA reads both +A1 and +A2 EPDs. Where a calculation type demands +A2 indicators that an +A1 EPD does not declare, the +A1 EPD can still be used, but the missing indicators will not be populated. Users should check the module coverage in the material library and decide whether to swap to an +A2 EPD or document the gap in their reporting. It is industry consensus that GWP-total values from +A1 EPDs can be directly compared with GWP-total values from +A2 EPDs. Other impact categories (ODP, EP, AP, POCP, ADP) use different characterisation factors in +A2 versus +A1 and should not be compared directly across the two revisions.

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Declared unit vs functional equivalent

Each EPD reports its environmental impacts per a declared unit — typically a mass (1 kg), area (1 m²), volume (1 m³), or piece. The whole-building result is reported per the project’s functional equivalent: kg CO₂-eq per m² GFA per year for most calculation types. Here is how Real-Time LCA bridges the two:
  1. A quantity is recorded for each component in the Building Component Inventory — sourced from a 3D model, IFC file, Excel import, or manual input — and linked to an EPD.
  2. The platform converts units if the recorded quantity unit differs from the EPD’s declared unit (e.g. if the EPD is declared per kg, the platform uses the density on the EPD to convert m³ → kg automatically).
  3. Emissions are calculated by multiplying the converted quantity by the EPD’s per-declared-unit impacts for each lifecycle module in scope.
  4. Results are aggregated by summing all component emissions and dividing by gross floor area (GFA) and the reference study period to produce the final kg CO₂-eq / m² GFA / year figure.

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Module coverage per EPD

EPDs vary in which lifecycle modules they declare:
  • Cradle-to-gate (A1–A3 only) — covers product stage. Real-Time LCA will use country-default end-of-life scenarios (C3, C4) to fill the gap when the project’s calculation type requires those modules.
  • Cradle-to-gate with options (A1–A3 + selected later modules) — common for EPDs that include A4, A5, B4, C, or D.
  • Cradle-to-grave — full A1–C4 coverage, often with module D.
The product detail view in the material library shows exactly which modules each EPD declares so you can audit a project’s coverage before reporting.

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EPD validity

Every EPD has:
  • Registration number — the EPD’s unique identifier, which can be used to look up the source document directly on the programme operator’s website.
  • Programme operator — who published it.
  • Verification status — verified, draft, or generic.
  • Issue date and expiry date — typically a 5-year validity window.
These fields are stored per EPD and visible in the material library. Users are responsible for checking EPD validity before finalising a report — an expired EPD may no longer reflect current manufacturing practices or regulatory requirements. See Data quality for how EPD versioning interacts with reproducibility of past reports.

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Relationship to EN 15941

EN 15941 defines requirements for data exchange and data quality between EPD programmes. Real-Time LCA’s datasource layer is designed to align with EN 15941 so that data ingested from one programme is treated consistently with data from another. See Data quality.