Mutual recognition agreement of Italian and Norwegian EPDs

On January 17, EPDItaly and EPD-Norge signed a mutual recognition agreement according to which an environmental product declaration EPD published by the only Italian Program Operator EPDItaly or the Norwegian EPD Norge can be automatically accepted also by the other subject without further verification, with a view to economic optimization addressed to the producers.

The international development of EPDItaly continues with the advantage of the competitiveness of Italian companies in the world. The signing of the agreement with the Norwegian Program Operator is in addition to the mutual recognition agreements, signed in the last few years, with the German Ibu (Institut Bauen und Umwelt), with the Austrian BAU EPD, with UL (Underwriters Laboratories), leading organization in the United States in the field of safety and environmental science, and with AENOR, the Spanish Global EPD Program.

Thanks to this agreement, the Italian companies, part of the EPDItaly program, will benefit from the possibility to publish the EPD document also on the EPD-Norge platform (www.epd-norge.no), without further verification, drastically reducing the human and economic costs and gaining more value in terms of quality and environmental sustainability. This will be possible thanks to the work of the experts of EPDItaly and EPD-Norge who, through technical analysis of comparison between the verification procedures regulated by the two Program Operators, have prepared a common operating mode. In addition, the product EPDs published in Italy on www.epditaly.it or from EPD-Norge on epd-norge.no will be automatically accepted by the other Program Operator, becoming part of a visible and internationally recognized database.

The agreement is part of the common strategy of disseminating the sustainability of the production system through the mutual recognition of Type III Environmental Declarations (EPD) among the main European and international Program Operators.

Both programs recognize the importance of adopting Epd, as an information tool for the environmental impacts of products. In Italy, the EPD document represents, in light of the Decree published in the Official Journal of 6/11/17, on the Minimum Environmental Criteria (MEC), one of the ways to demonstrate compliance with the MEC requirements.

EPDItaly, the only Italian Program Operator, has obtained from Accredia (the Italian Accreditation Body) the recognition that allows the Certification Bodies to operate under accreditation for the verification and validation of the Environmental Product Declarations. EPDItaly publishes the Epd validated by the Certification Bodies on the website http://www.epditaly.it/en/view-view-epd/. The publication is the final act that allows those interested, to verify that the product in question is suitable to satisfy the MEC.

EPD Norge, like EPDItaly, is a Program Operator member of the Eco Platform, whose main objective is to support the harmonization of European EPDs, so that EPD related to the same product, validated under different Program Operators, can be compared to each other.