Oct 27 2014
Aggregate Industries US (AIUS) joined 70 companies and 2,300 concrete plants in the ready-mix concrete industry to participate in the National Ready-Mix Concrete Association's (NRMCA) industry-wide Environmental Product Declaration (EPD).
This third-party verified report, developed using the Life Cycle Assessment process, provides quality assured and comparable information regarding the environmental performance of concrete.
The industry-wide EPD was developed in strict accordance with ISO 14025 and other standards referenced in the Product Category Rule for concrete. AIUS provided material and process data to the Life Cycle Assessment consultant in order to conduct a full life cycle assessment on Ready Mixed Concrete and report results in the EPD. As is required by the international standard, a third party expert reviewed and verified all components of the report.
"At AIUS, we welcome the chance to show how environmentally responsible and sustainable our products are. The EPD is essentially a 'nutrition label' for the concrete industry," said Filiberto Ruiz, president and chief executive officer of Aggregate Industries US. "It's going to help us, as a company, be more transparent about what goes into the product, and ultimately will allow our clients to more easily build projects that are LEED v4 compliant."
In order to gain LEED v4 credit, a project is required to use at least 20 products that have EPDs. Because concrete is defined by each unique mix design, its uses provide dozens of products from foundations, floors and columns to curbs, parking lots and beams.
The industry-wide EPD takes into consideration environmental impacts including global warming potential, ozone depletion potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential and photo chemical ozone creation/smog potential. It will also include other impacts such as depletion of non-renewable energy resources, water consumption and waste. It will be applicable to concrete with compressive strength ranging from 2,500 psi through 8,000 psi, with a wide range of product formulations for each strength class.
"Aggregate Industries and other NRMCA members that have participated in the collection of data are to be recognized and applauded for participating in the development of the industry-wide EPD or their own specific EPD aimed at identifying the ways to reduce the environmental impact in the manufacturing of concrete. In this way these companies are helping to meet the challenge put forth in LEED certification and in Architecture 2030," said Robert Garbini, president of NRMCA.
In addition to the industry-wide EPD, NRMCA also published industry baselines (averages) for environmental impacts of concrete. These averages will allow AIUS to compare the environmental impacts of its ready-mix concrete to the industry average and further gain LEED v4 credits.