In another industry first, Aggregate Industries are pleased to share with customers more accurate Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). These are now specific to the product mix and the plant at which they are produced across their London Concrete business and not based on regional averages.

An EPD describes materials, products or components in terms of their environmental impact, based on life-cycle assessments and their functional and technical characteristics. The quantitative, objective and verified information covers the entire lifecycle of the product and constitutes an important basis for assessing sustainability in construction.

Crucially, EPDs can support engineers and architects in making informed decisions on low-impact materials, components and construction methods based on their environmental performance early in the design process. This supports achieving important carbon reduction targets.

In a UK first for readymix concrete products, Aggregate Industries has invested in individual product and plant EPDs for its London Concrete business. This includes the ECOPact product range, the world’s lowest range of low-carbon concrete, DYNAMax High Performance Concrete (HPC) as well as other generic concrete mixes across all plants in the region.

EPDs are associated with voluntary Type III environmental labels. As part of this, EPD products are summarised and documented in a uniform format; factual, neutral, specifically sound and unbiased. They are based on the ISO 14025 and EN 15804 standards and are tested and verified by independent third parties.

Until recently, EPDs for concrete had only been available as averages for entire regions or product groups. Now, every London Concrete plant will have its own individual product and plant specific EPD.

Since EPDs must be calculated and comprehensively audited by an independent verifier, it means each product comes with a credible assessment of its environmental impact – which allows architects and planners to measure the CO₂ footprint and circularity of materials more accurately than ever before. Even more importantly, it enables them to compare the sustainable credentials of different cement and concrete products so they can analyse each one individually in their selection process.

Choosing the right concrete for a project can really reduce the carbon used in a build. Product-specific EPDs provide architects, designers and building contractors with the precise data they need to make more informed and sustainable choices.