UL Environment, a business unit of UL (Underwriters Laboratories), announced today the launch of its EPD Transparency Brief, a single-page supplement to the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) that provides an at-a-glance look at a product’s most critical lifecycle-based environmental impact information.

Developed with creative and technical input from architecture firm Perkins+Will, carpet tile manufacturer Interface, and a consortium of market-leading EPD users (including DPR Construction, Gensler, HOK, SERA, and Webcor Builders), UL Environment’s EPD Transparency Brief is available for use by any manufacturer whose product has earned a UL Environment Certified EPD.

“We realized that what the marketplace needed wasn’t just information-but, rather, information that’s easy to find, easy to understand, and easy to use. We call this notion ‘accessible transparency,’” said Heather Gadonniex, part of the strategy and innovation team at UL Environment. “Our EPD Transparency Brief allows for accessible transparency by making it inherently simpler and quicker for specifiers and purchasers to glean key facts about a product’s lifecycle-based impacts. And that helps them make more informed product choices.”

The result of many months of collaboration between UL Environment and a cross-section of experts in green building, design, products, and business, the EPD Transparency Brief:

· Condenses the complex information presented within the many pages of an EPD into a concise, easy-to-understand, “nutrition label-like” document that takes up no more than one page front-and-back.

· Acts as a “quick reference guide” to a product’s EPD, enabling specifiers to readily access the EPD’s most relevant information-thus saving time and effort.

· Serves as a unique sales, marketing, and specification tool that discloses a product’s most relevant environmental impacts while also showcasing a manufacturer’s commitment to transparency.

“Offering more information about the human and environmental health of materials and buildings will drive change in the marketplace,” noted Chris Youssef, designer at Perkins+Will. “At Perkins+Will, we have been working alongside partners such as Interface and UL Environment to help drive this change, and we are thrilled to see transparency taking root.”

To complement the EPD Transparency Brief, UL Environment has also introduced a new UL Certified Environmental Product Declaration badge-an easily recognizable mark that manufacturers can use on marketing collateral to help further differentiate their products. The badge-a green-colored, soft-cornered rectangle bearing a modified UL mark, a leaf, and the words CERTIFIED ENVIRONMENTAL PRODUCT DECLARATION-also helps specifiers identify products that have a trusted, third-party certified EPD.

Among the first manufacturers to receive the new EPD Transparency Brief and Certified Environmental Product Declaration badge are Kingspan, CertainTeed Saint-Gobain, and Interface.

“Interface is proud to continue our leadership in the transparency movement,” stated Lindsay James, director of strategic sustainability at Interface. “The ‘accessible transparency’ of the EPD Transparency Brief fills a critical need for busy specifiers who are eager to make choices based on lifecycle environmental impacts, with the reassurance of third-party verified data.”

Both transparency tools will be on display at UL Environment’s booth (#3717) at the AIA National Conference in Washington, D.C., which runs today through Saturday, May 19.