The Toolbox: Getting to Know Labels And Certifications

Eco-labels and product declarations are the workman’s tools in the age of transparency. To wield these in the battle for clear, confident product evaluations, decision-makers need to get comfortable with an alphabet soup: PCRs, EPDs, and LCAs.

What Is a PCR?

A PCR, or product category rule, establishes a set of internationally recognized and consistent rules, requirements, and guidelines that all functionally equivalent products in a specific industry must use when creating environmental product declarations (EPDs). That means that in order for a product in a given industry to be transparent, it must be tested and evaluated in a clear, consistent way, allowing decision-makers to make better-informed choices. A global PCR allows manufacturers worldwide to evaluate the environmental impact of products using a common approach, resulting in less market confusion.

Testing guidelines and reporting methods are created through industry consensus and review. Using the same calculation, testing, and reporting methods allows for a more apples-to-apples comparison. A PCR levels the playing field for all products industry wide. By using an internationally recognized standard, every product in a given industry can have its environmental impacts evaluated in a clear, consistent manner.

PCRs minimize confusion among various types of environmental reporting by establishing a clear, consistent evaluation method by which the environmental impact claims of all products in that industry are evaluated. Once a PCR is established, an EPD can be created based on product evaluations. An EPD is based on the rules created in the PCR. “The resulting EPD allows for a more fair comparison of environmental impacts between similar products,” writes Anna Nicholson Lasso, product manager of environmental product declarations at UL Environment.

What Is an LCA?

PCRs are the first step in the development of an EPD, which is an important transparency tool. To produce an EPD, companies must first develop a life-cycle assessment (LCA) for their product that uses product-specific calculations and requirements specified in a PCR.

An LCA investigates a product’s total environmental impact from time of manufacture (beginning of life) to time of disposal (end of life), providing insight on the environmental impact of products from cradle to grave. The only truly valid LCAs are commissioned through an independent, third-party evaluator.

The LCA method examines a broad range of environmental impacts at all stages of a product life cycle, including all material, energy, and pollutant inputs and outputs, according to product rules.

What Is an EPD?

An EPD is a standardized way of quantifying the environmental impact of a product by studying the raw materials and energy consumption during its production, use, and disposal. For buyers and specifiers, an EPD becomes a disclosure tool that helps purchasers better understand a product’s sustainable qualities and environmental repercussions, enabling more informed product selections.

The First-Ever Global PCR—and for Hand Dryers

Leading hand dryer manufacturers initiated the first-ever global PCR in 2016, which was created for the hand dryer industry and published by UL Environment, a business division of Underwriters’ Laboratories. The rules established product evaluation methods used to determine key values such as dry time and energy consumption through industry consensus. Under UL protocol and the direction of a UL program operator, leading manufacturers of high-speed, energy-efficient (HSEE) dryers formed a committee to draft the rules by which all hand dryers will be evaluated and to report those findings for environmental impact in EPDs. Competitors sat together on the committee to establish industry consensus by agreeing on several key hand dryer elements.

Once those elements were selected and approved, the demanding process of drafting a PCR moved forward, bringing an open response period for other manufacturers in the industry and interested parties to comment. After receiving feedback, an expert review panel considered the draft and comments from manufacturers before finalizing and publishing the PCR.

At its conclusion, the hand dryer PCR is the culmination of more than a year-long process and is the first step toward the development of EPD eco-labels that govern one or more product category.

Applying the PCR to Product Selection

Now, with advent of the global hand dryer PCR, all hand dryer manufacturers seeking eco-labels are required to test for data such as dry times and energy use in exactly the same way, creating a new age of transparency. If products are not tested to the industry standards, then buyer beware.

Under this global rule, manufacturers submitted HSEE products for evaluations and had their environmental claims substantiated under the industry’s first EPDs.

“The hand dryer market, like so many others, is inundated with knockoff products and manufacturers making unsubstantiated claims. Architects and specifiers may approve ‘or equal’ products that are not true equivalents. The same is true for buyers looking to compare and purchase the best product for their facilities. All products need to be evaluated by the same set of rules and reporting guidelines—for hand dryers, that rule is the new global PCR from UL Environment,” says William Gagnon, vice president of marketing and sales for Excel Dryer.

Using an LCA in Product Evaluation

Leading manufacturers also obtain LCAs for their products. LCA studies should be peer-reviewed by an independent panel of LCA experts to ensure compliance with the standards contained in ISO 14040.

An LCA not only weighs a product’s energy efficiency but also measures to what degree its efficiency translates into significant environmental benefits over the full life cycle of the product. It also provides a valuable tool for comparing the product to alternative methods; for example, comparing HSEE dryers with other hand-drying alternatives, such as virgin or recycled paper towels.

The LCA method examines a broad range of environmental impacts at all stages of a product’s life cycle, including all material, energy, and pollutant inputs and outputs.

For example, assume that architects and decision-makers want to gather the full energy and environmental impacts of three proposed hand-drying methods: a leading manufacturer’s patented high-efficiency electric hand dryer, a conventional electric hand dryer, and paper towels containing between 0 percent and 100 percent recycled content. Employing an LCA, each system is evaluated to determine the environmental impact of providing 10 years of service (drying 260,000 pairs of hands). The results show that the HSEE hand dryer reduces the environmental impact of hand drying by 50 percent to 75 percent over the other two methods.

Then, a wide variety of environmental impact categories were evaluated, and yet again, the HSEE proved to provide an environmental advantage in each category. In addition to reducing climate change impacts (carbon footprint), the HSEE dryer also reduced the use of nonrenewable energy, impacts on ecosystems, and emissions that damage human health.

In comparison to paper towels, the combined environmental impact of producing the paper towels and associated materials far exceed the impact from the use of a hand dryer. Although the use of recycled paper fibers in the towels may reduce some of the impacts of this system, even at 100 percent recycled content, the HSEE dryer still maintains a significant margin of benefit.

A wide variety of sensitivity tests and scenario evaluations conducted under an LCA demonstrate that the margin of benefit for the HSEE dryer over other evaluated methods is quite substantial and not dependent on certain assumptions or conditions. A test of uncertainty in the results shows that the confidence in the benefit of the energy-efficient hand dryer, in comparison to the other systems, is quite high. Particularly in comparison to paper towels, the combined environmental impact of producing the paper towels and associated materials far exceed the impact from the use of energy-efficient dryers. Among the sensitivity tests that have been conducted are variation in the amount of recycled content for the towels, the methods for determining the impacts of recycled content, the assumed source of electricity, and the behavior of the user.

The LCA scenarios regarding user behavior reveal the important role that the user plays in determining the overall impacts of each system. “High-intensity” users will cause a significantly larger impact because the increase is nearly in proportion to the amount of dry time or amount of towels used. However, even “high-intensity” users of the HSEE system remained at a lower level of impact than “low-intensity” users of other systems.