Environmental Product Declarations
Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) are an essential tool in our efforts to minimise the environmental impact of water infrastructure. EPDs tell the life cycle story of a product in a single comprehensive report and detail its potential environmental impact. Considering the EPDs of materials during design and procurement allows us to improve our decision making and demonstrates the steps we are taking towards our sustainability goals.
Importantly, EPDs provide manufacturers with insights into their processes and allow them to target improvements to reduce the environmental impact of their products. These efforts and stories are transferable and can amplify our progress towards a sustainable future.
At this year’s conference expo, we wish to highlight the important effort being undertaken across the water sector supply chain to develop EPDs and how they are being used to reduce environmental impacts. For product users we would like to highlight the importance of understanding EPDs and promote their use in sound environmental decision-making.
To this end, the conference will feature a panel outlining the use of EPDs, the exhibition will showcase existing supplier EPDs via a series of walking tours, and a pre-conference webinar series. More information, and registration details for each of these initiatives is outlined below.
Exhibition walking tour
If you are an exhibitor with an existing Environmental Product Declaration, we would love you to showcase this during the conference.
The conference programme will feature EPD walking tours of the exhibition areas. Hosted by members of Water New Zealand’s Climate Change Group, delegates will be escorted on a tour of participating exhibition stands. Suppliers are invited to provide a short presentation outlining the story of their EPD, followed by a brief Q&A from tour participants.
If you are a supplier. Email lesley.smith@waternz.org.nz to register your exhibition stand to be included in the tour.
Conference panel
Experiences developing and using EPD’s across the water service supply chain will be shared by practitioners in a dedicated conference panel.
Visit the programme for information on session time and location.
Pre-conference webinars
Environmental Product Declarations are an emerging tool to drive emissions reduction, and as such, we expect they will be new to many. The Water New Zealand Climate Change group has put together a webinar series leading up to our conference to introduce suppliers, and end users to EPDs so you can get the most out of your conference experience.
Webinars are free to attend for suppliers and Water New Zealand members. Registration links for the webinars will be live on this page on February 17th.
Introduction to Environmental Product Declarations
This webinar (Click here to view) will inform product manufacturers, suppliers, and water network managers and operators of the purpose of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), and the fundamentals of how they are produced and used.
This session is suitable for all those wanting to understand EPDs and how to use them in production or procurement.
Objectives
- Understand the fundamentals of EPDs – what are they and how are they produced.
- Examples of EPDs in use from both an operator/product and supplier/manufacturer perspective.
How to develop and use Environmental Product Declarations
This webinar will help you further develop your understanding of EPDs and how they can be developed and used to improve environmental performance of water infrastructure development.
This session will be suitable for all those wishing to advance their understanding of the process of producing and procuring using EPDs.
Objectives
- Understand how EPDs can be used in planning infrastructure development and decision making.
- Share examples of EPDs in use and provide insights into the tools available for completing optioneering assessments of infrastructure development.
- How EPDs can be used, accessed, and inform asset planning processes.
- Examples will be shared of using EPDs to drive innovation in manufacturing processes.