How does the International EPD System relate to EN 15804?

EN 15804 refers to the European standard EN 15804:2012+A2:2019, “Sustainability of construction works - Environmental product declarations - Core rules for the product category of construction products”. This standard was developed to function as a “Core PCR” to harmonize environmental declarations across programme operators. The European standard is complementary to ISO 14025, which provides rules on how to operate a programme for type III environmental declarations. 

The International EPD® System is actively working towards complying with this standard, through the General Programme Instructions and the relevant PCRs. As the International EPD® System has both a geographical scope and scope of product categories that is larger than construction products in Europe, the compliance with the standard is defined on a case-to-case basis for PCRs. EPDs and PCRs for construction products shall state their compliance or non-compliance with EN 15804. 

There is one type of PCR currently available for construction products: 

• PCR 2019:14 for Construction products. This document is the main option for EPDs compliant with the present version of EN 15804 (EN 15804:2012+A2:2019). Using this document, any construction product may be declared using a declared unit and any system boundaries except “cradle to grave and module D”. A complementary PCR (c-PCR) shall be used if available, which often means that a functional unit is to be used.
  
  

The International EPD® System is a founding member of the ECO Platform to collaborate with other programme operators for alignment with EN 15804. The system also has mutual recognition agreement with several EPD programmes which are listed here, where EPDs are accepted mutually without further verification upon request. With an additional registration fee, the owner of such an EPD may carry the logotype of both programmes.