Hilti’s modular supports offer product sustainability transparency with Environmental Product Declarations
With the aim of being the best partner for sustainability, Hilti has released Environmental Product Declarations on its MT systems portfolio.
What is an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)?
An EPD is a standardised and a verified document reporting a product's environmental impacts. The environmental data is created using a holistic life-cycle assessment (LCA) in accordance with ISO14025 and EN15804+A2 standard and gets verified by a third-party expert. The most important information carried by an EPD is the product’s carbon footprint – called the Global Warming Potential (GWP). In addition to carbon, the EPD contains environmental impacts to air, soil, and water bodies.
Often one would search for carbon emissions information in an EPD to assess the impact of using a product in a construction project. As indicated in the figure above, A1 to A3 stages of the building LCA constitute the Product Phase which plays a crucial role in assessing the embodied carbon*. A1 to A3 stages encompass the utilisation of all materials, products, and energy, as well as waste processing up to the end-of-waste state or disposal of final residues during the product phase. This reflects the CO2 emissions until the product is out of the factory gate, therefore is referred to as “cradle to gate” assessment. The lower the CO2 value (GWP) in the A1-A3 stage, the lower the global warming impact of the purchased materials.
Why do you need it?
The construction industry faces a growing challenge to report the environmental impacts of their projects to cut carbon emissions and reduce other impacts. Regulations mandating building life cycle assessments are increasing all over Europe, and many of those mandates also include caps on the carbon emissions per square meter of building. A growing number of investors or property owners aim for top accreditation in green building certifications where every material data helps for the assessment.
For companies to calculate their Scope 3 emissions according to Greenhouse Gas protocol, information on carbon footprint of their purchased materials is needed. Procurement decisions at projects are becoming more and more influenced by these factors, and consequently there is a need to calculate embodied carbon at the design stages of the projects. The presence of EPDs plays a critical role as they provide the basis for a data-driven, conscious decision for design and purchasing.
What does Hilti offer?
Hilti offers EPDs across its product portfolio. Specifically, we have EPDs for indoor coated profiles, outdoor coated profiles, and connection components of the MT modular support systems. This includes both the open C channels and closed girder systems that cover light-duty to heavy-duty application ranges. With the provision of these EPDs, consequent calculation of environmental impact covers more than 80% of the weight in the Support Systems applications constructed with our MT system. We have efficiently clustered the product group in the EPDs so that we can achieve optimized Global Warming Potential (GWP) in each product.
By adding our value engineering approach, we can optimise a solution not only from a load capacity point of view, but also optimising the support system to bring the lowest amount of CO2 per solution.
Where to find further information?
The EPDs are valid for 5 years and can be used immediately for your design work and project submittals as needed. The EPD files are available on each product page of your local Hilti website product pages. (Please select product package size first, then you will see “Sustainability Document” tab at the bottom of the page).
These EPDs can also be found in the respective libraries of the Program Operators that published the documents:
Hilti will release further EPDs on modular supports, each dedicated to a different product portfolio so that each product EPD carries optimized and specific environmental impact values.
What are the sustainability achievements and strategy of Hilti group?
At Hilti, we strive to become our customers’ best partner for sustainability. This is at the core of our strategy.
To achieve that, the Hilti Group is accelerating existing activities to become a more sustainable company, while also increasing the focus on making customers’ business more sustainable.
In 2023, Hilti has received EcoVadis’ gold rating** for the third time in a row. The sustainability rating agency awards its gold rating to the top five percent of the more than 100,000 companies evaluated across all industries worldwide.
At the end of 2023, the Hilti Group has reached CO2 neutrality in its own operations as planned. This achievement marks the first milestone on the company’s journey towards net zero by 2050. Hilti’s sustainability report can be downloaded here.
*Refers to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the entire lifecycle of a building or product, except the ongoing use phase. E.g. emissions from extracting and processing materials, manufacturing, transportation, construction, demolition, and end-of-life disposal.
**The rating result is subject to update in August 2024
No comments yet
Be the first to comment on this article!