High POCP in OneSteel EPD vs Industry Average Steel

  • Sam May 27, 2019 at 2:51 am

    The following OneSteel reinforcing bar EPD has quite high POCP compared to the industry average steel on etool.
    https://www.libertygfg.com/media/1815/onesteel-reinforcing-rod-bar-wire_environmental-product-declaration-2016.pdf

    It results in the total POCP for a proposed building being 13% higher than the reference building. Despite a 170% cumulative reduction across the Green Star categories (taking into account other improvements aside from this steel change), we wouldn’t achieve any LCA points because POCP is above that 10% threshold for a single category increase.

    I am wondering about the accuracies of the EPD and eTool source, and the best method to model. If they’re not reasonable/accurate, I could bump up the recycled content in the proposed model (from default industry average 40.33% to onesteel’s 65%)? Or maybe they are reasonable/accurate, and I question GBCA’s 10% threshold and weighting of impact categories – should 3.5million kg of CO2eq not be traded for 3000kg ethylene?

    Fei Ngeow May 27, 2019 at 3:06 am

    Hi Sam, thanks for your question. A related question has been asked before for POCP in cement. Please refer to Rich’s reply on this post.

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