Our GECA LCA Suite includes:
• Life Cycle Assessment
A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a science-based tool that can be helpful to evaluate the environmental or social impacts of products and services throughout their whole lifecycle, from raw materials extraction to their end-of-life. An LCA provides manufacturers and organisations with detailed information on their impacts and illustrates where key improvements have been made in the market. This data can enable you to improve your processes even further.
The data gathered via an LCA can provide a robust baseline for designing circular economy strategies, including product circular design improvements, identifying circular economy solutions, creating sustainable resource management and recovery, and strengthening circular business models.
• Environmental Product Declaration
An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is an independently verified and registered document that communicates the data from an LCA, following ISO standard 14025 principles. Impact areas can include (but are not limited to) greenhouse gas emissions, water and soil pollution, and resource use depending on the environmental issues related to the product or service.
Many specifiers, architects, and green building programs ask manufacturers for EPDs and incorporate EPD information into specifications. An EPD can assist in earning points in schemes such as GBCA’s Green Star, the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED, and ISC’s IS Rating Scheme. They can also help organisations achieve carbon neutral certification under the Australian Government’s Climate Active program.
The GECA difference:
GECA has a dedicated Standards & Technical team with expertise in developing LCA and EPDs. We provide EPDs registered with EPD Australasia, which are publicly available and internationally recognised.
EPD Australasia and GECA have an agreement that provides a mutual discount for GECA licensees registering an EPD with EPD Australasia and an EPD owner applying for GECA certification for their product. This reciprocal discount is available for existing licensees of GECA and businesses with an EPD registered with EPD Australasia.
GECA licensees can obtain $500 off the registration of their first EPD with EPD Australasia and 10% off the first year’s annual fee. Businesses with an EPD registered with EPD Australasia are entitled to a waiver of the $840 application fee for GECA certification and 10% off the annual license fee.