Carbon neutral product with EPD

[Erwin5705]

Do you have advice on how to model a carbon neutral product that contains an EPD? I would normally first create a scenario with the EPD added first before applying the carbon neutral “factor” as per your support post https://support.etoollcd.com/index.php/knowledgebase/modeling-carbon-neutral-products-in-etoollcd/, but when I follow the steps, the “negative” GWP from the carbon neutral material will be higher than the value in the EPD (eg for low carbon concretes). The only way I can think around this is to re-add the original stndard template and then applying the carbon offset. Is there another way to do this as it seems to be quite inefficient?

Thanks

[Fei Ngeow]

Hi Erwin,

I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean by ‘the “negative” GWP from the carbon neutral material will be higher than the value in the EPD’. Can you send through screen shots?

By the way, please note that a product that is only ‘carbon neutral’ because they have paid for ‘carbon offsets’ does not align with EN15978. If you wish to model these EPDs, we recommend that you don’t model them in your headline LCAs but model it as a ‘Scenario’ design option instead like we have outlined in this support post for renewable power puchase agreements.

[Erwin5705]

Hi Fei,

Following the process provided by eTool, the offset of concrete is equivalent to the emissions associated with the quantity of traditional concrete. eg to offset 1000m3 of 40MPa concrete, eTool calculates this to be GWP of -540,688 which is the same as if inputting 1000m3 of 40MPa concrete blends. When using an EPD like Boral’s envirocrete, the GWP for 1000m3 is 282,000. When wanting to offset this in a scenario, do we need to delete this EPD, put in the traditional concrete, and then create the offset.

Hope that clarifies

Thanks