NRMCA member, GCC, has certified Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for 30 products it manufactures at its concrete production facilities in Tulsa, OK. Developing and certifying (verifying) EPDs requires a rigorous process of conducting a life cycle assessment (LCA) of plant operations and product formulation followed by an extensive review by independent LCA professionals. GCC chose the NRMCA EPD Program to certify its EPDs. It followed the Product Category Rule for Concrete developed by the Carbon Leadership Forum and relevant international standards. Athena Sustainable Materials Institute conducted the LCA and developed the EPDs for GCC and NSF International verified the EPDs. 

Architects and engineers are requesting EPDs for building products as a way to demonstrate that they are reducing the environmental footprint of the buildings they design. They compare the environmental impacts of the products they specify against an industry benchmark, or average, and EPDs help them identify products with lower impacts and actually quantify the impact reductions for their buildings. NRMCA was one of the first industry groups to publish insutry benchmarks. The major driver is LEED v4 that has credits now for LCA (3 points) and EPDs (2 points). However, even projects not pursuing LEED points are beginning to specify EPDs, with similar objectives: quantify and lower environmental impacts of projects. Some examples include the new Atlanta Falcons football stadium and the massive California High Speed Rail project.

"We’re proud to be the first concrete producer in Tulsa with EPDs and look forward to working with architects and engineers to help lower the environmental footprint of concrete through continuous product and process improvement," says Fawn Kibria, environmental engineer with GCC. Lionel Lemay, who manages NRMCA’s EPD Program, adds. "The concrete industry leads the way with the number of building products with EPDs with over 2,000 products certified under the NRMCA EPD program."