Declaration of the End-of-Life for Building Products

Increasing energy efficiency and related environmental performance improvements of buildings direct stronger focus on the environmental impacts related to building products. For product manufacturers, the provision of information in terms of environmental product declarations (EPD) is a market tool of continuously rising importance.

The increasing concern related to environmental and resource efficiency promotes the concept of circular economy, especially reuse and recycling procedures at the end-of-life (EoL) play an increasing role in decision making. Manufacturers are often unsure how to include late life cycle stages in their product declarations. At the same time users of the information are confused as to what provided information really refers to.

The concept of modular EoL-declarations with clearly identified and described scenarios aims to facilitate the inclusion of the full life cycle in EPDs based on reliable and realistic data. At the same time EoL-declarations promote the communication between the production and EoL-actors and enhance understanding of provided information, including judgements on potential demand and procedures for adaptation of provided information. (paper)