Skip to main content
You are currently viewing: Global
All markets
Global
Austria
Belgium FR
Belgium NL
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Hungary
India
Ireland
Italy
Netherlands
Poland
Romania
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Turkey
UAE
United Kingdom

From Data to Decisions: Understanding EPDs

Theme
Sustainable performance
Reading time
6 minutes
Published
By
Doubravka Šimáňová

Sustainability isn’t just a trend; it is becoming central to how decisions are made within the HVAC industry. Designers want reliable information. Building regulations demand transparency. Customers expect proof, not promises. That’s where Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) come in to provide verified, comparable data that helps show and see the environmental performance of our products with confidence. Increasingly, organisations rely on both EPDs and life cycle assessment tools to support transparent, data driven decisions.

What is an EPD?

An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a standardised, third-party verified document that transparently communicates the environmental impact of a product throughout its life cycle. Based on a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), an EPD provides quantified and comparable environmental data, such as global warming potential, energy use, and resource consumption. This helps shift the focus from environmental claims to verifiable facts. 

Think of an EPD as a label of environmentally certified trust. It offers clear insight into a product’s environmental performance – from raw material extraction, through manufacturing and use, to end-of-life. EPDs are built on verified data and independent standards, ensuring credibility and comparability. 

EPDs typically follow ISO 14025 and EN 15804 for construction products. Rather than making marketing claims, they deliver science-based information that supports informed decision-making for designers, engineers, and customers, while aligning with many emerging sustainability reporting standards. 

EPDs: From optional to expected

As sustainability and climate responsibility move to the forefront of business and regulatory agendas, transparency has become essential. EPDs are increasingly required in green building certifications such as LEED, BREEAM, Miljöbyggnad and DGNB, and they support evolving ESG and procurement requirements. Many organisations are also aligning their product data with broader sustainability reporting standards, further increasing the importance of EPDs. 

For manufacturers, EPDs show a commitment to environmental responsibility, transparency, and accountability. For customers, they provide reassurance that sustainability claims are backed up by verified data. In short, EPDs are quickly becoming a benchmark for credible environmental performance across the industry. 

How EPDs are shaping the future of HVAC

At FläktGroup, we see EPDs as a practical tool to drive transparency, foster innovation, and deliver more sustainable HVAC solutions. In an ever increasing evolving and complex industry as HVAC, EPDs don’t just tick a box, they help give practical value: 

Identifying environmental impacts in production 

EPDs helps assess all stages of a product’s life cycle—from raw materials through to manufacturing, use, and end-of-life. This whole-picture view, grounded in life cycle assessment thinking, helps to develop HVAC solutions with lower overall environmental impacts and stronger circularity.

Guiding smarter material and design choices 

By enabling objective comparisons between different materials or design alternatives with the same function within HVAC systems, EPDs help to support ecodesign and better trade-offs.

Making complex data accessible 

Life-cycle data can feel overwhelming, but EPDs help break this barrier down by translating detailed life-cycle assessment results into clear and accessible information. This approach increases the reach and impact of sustainability data, empowering you to make more informed, environmentally responsible decisions.

Building trust with verified sustainability communication 

With third-party verified data, EPDs help differentiate FläktGroup in a market where transparency matters. It also supports the growing requirements for environmental reporting and alignment with major sustainability reporting standards such as LEED, BREEAM, and DGNB.

Understanding the Life Cycle of a product

Products have a life too, and EPDs show each stage of their life cycle in modules. These modules follow the same logic used in life cycle assessment frameworks. 

  • A – Product stage 
  • B – Use stage 
  • C – End-of-life stage 
  • D – Benefits and loads beyond the system boundary 

For HVAC equipment, the most relevant modules are A1–A3 (materials and manufacturing) and B6 (operational energy).  

Bringing It All Together: Turning EPD Results into Better Decisions

Environmental Product Declarations turn complex sustainability data into something genuinely useful — but only when the results are understood in the right context. By looking beyond single headline figures and understanding how impacts are distributed across a product’s life cycle, EPDs help decision‑makers focus on what really matters.

For HVAC systems in particular, this means recognising the importance of materials and manufacturing impacts (A1–A3) and operational energy use (B6), while also appreciating how durability, efficiency and design choices influence environmental performance over time. EPDs are not about finding a single “best” number — they are about enabling transparent, informed and responsible comparisons aligned with real‑world use.

At FläktGroup, we see EPDs as more than a reporting requirement. They are a practical tool that supports sustainable design, builds trust through verified data, and aligns HVAC solutions with the expectations of modern buildings, green certifications and wider ESG goals.

Understanding what EPD results tell us is the first step. The next step is knowing how to read and interpret an EPD document with confidence. Stay tuned for our next article where we will be exploring just that.

Want to explore our EPD products? Head to our EPD page:

EPD Page