Abstract :
[en] At the heart of the collective effort to reduce our environmental footprint, the concept of 'Zero Waste' is now finding its way into a variety of sectors, including construction. In October 2023, two consecutive study days were organised by the SPW (Service Public de Wallonie) Soil and Waste De-partment, which is committed to this transition, and highlighted the latest advances and best prac-tices for more sustainable (de)construction and more extensive selective sorting of construction, renovation, and demolition waste.
During these days, I was solicited to present a short conference about the interest of the use of EPD for the choice of material. The public was a large audience, and the challenge was to present the relevance of making and/or using EPD to non-LCA practitioners, which include material producers, politics, architects, and other consumers potentially implied in the sustainable development in the building sector.
The title, in French, was: "La déclaration environnementale de produit : un outil de choix pour la sélection des matériaux ?". It includes a play on word, since in French, "un outil de choix" can have different meanings: literally "of choice" but also figuratively "of excellent quality".
The aim of my presentation was to answer this question by explaining what environmental product declarations are, how they are realised on a solid and reliable basis, how they can be used, and how they could contribute to the selection of the most "virtuous" materials possible with objective ar-guments and no greenwashing.
My proposal is to share my experience of this exercise, with the difficulty to explain what was an EPD to an audience that was not familiar with even the concept of life cycle assessment, and that some-times had already had EPD in the hand and found it impossible to understand, and what feedback I had after the presentation.
