Useful terms and expressions for your who is about to start climate documenting
LCA.no - LCA.no AS is a supplier of tools and services for climate declaration and innovation. Our tool use science based data and follows international standards.
Climate documentation - Climate documentation refers to different forms of documents, certifications and reports that describe and assess environmental impacts for a certain activity, product, service or organisation.
EPD - EPD is a concise document that summarized environmental attributes for a component, a finished product or a service and is always based on international standards.
LCA - in order to develop an EPD, an LCA (Life Cycle assessment) is used. A life cycle assessment assesses the environmental and resource related conditions throughout the products entire life cycle, from "cradle-to-grave", or preferably "cradle-to-cradle".
Verified EPD - in order for an EPD to be approved, it must be verified by an independent third part. In Norway it is EPD Norway that approved and publishes EPDs.
EPD Norway - program operator for environmental declarations (EPD) type III according to 14025.
Program operator - A program operator is an independant third-party that is to secure that EPDs are developed according to current rules of regulations and standard. All EPDs that are third-party verified and published on EPD-Norway are in accord with all relevant standards for EPD for approval and verification of EPDs.
B1-B7 – Refers to different stages in the use phase of a product. Disse stages belong to the EN 15978-standard, which supplies the guidelines for how environmental performance of building should be rated over the entire life cycle.
C1-C4 - Refers to stages at the end of the life cycle of a product or building. These stages are defined in the EN 15978 standard for evaluation of environmental performances of buildings.
D – Refers to a phase that includes reuse, recycling, and energy recovery that happens after a products or buildings life cycle is finished.
GWP - Global Warming Potential. GWP is an important parameter because is enables us to compare the effects of different greenhouse gasses on global warming.
Declared unit – In the LCA-analysis, declared unit refers to a specific measuring unit which is used to quantify the environmental impacts of a product or a process. The declared unit is used to standardize the results so that they are comparable and understandable for different stakeholders.
Functional unit– In the LCA-analysis, functional unit refers to a measuring unit which describes the function a product or service offers. The functional unit is essential in order to do precise and meaningful comparisons of the environmental impacts between different products or services, as it takes into consideration the performance and purpose of use for that which is being analysed.