With support of industry members, the Canadian Ready Mix Concrete Association has published its industry average environmental impacts for concrete. Responding to product transparency drivers, including green building standards, the Industry-Wide (IW) Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) discloses the environmental impacts of concrete manufacturing for a wide range of concrete products. The EPD lists impacts for a range of eight compressive strengths utilizing various percentages of SCMs, limestone substitute for clinker and benchmark mixes. In total, the EPD lists 125 mixes, covering most concrete used in residential, commercial and public construction.

The EPD was developed in collaboration with industry members. The Athena Sustainable Materials Institute conducted the life-cycle assessment and developed the EPD which was third-party verified by NSF International. The CRMCA IW-EPD can be found here.

This effort is another example where the ready mixed concrete industry can claim a leadership position in transparency when comparing to other product categories. For a listing of NRMCA IW-EPD, Benchmark reports and services that facilitate company specific EPDs, please visit here. As part of the Build with Strength campaign, NRMCA promotes industry competitiveness in the green building marketplace and the trends toward product and company transparency.