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International Embodied Carbon Data Availability: A Review of Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) Availability in Europe, China, and Australia

CLF completed a landscape analysis of product-level embodied carbon data availability in regions outside North America with the goals of: (i) understanding how LCA/EPD data availability varies globally; (ii) informing where targeted initiatives are needed to increase the availability of data; and (iii) determining whether adequate EPD data exists to develop CLF Material Baselines outside North America.

This report summarizes our findings and provides initial insights into what data is available to inform low-carbon procurement efforts in Australia, China, and Europe.

Über

Embodied carbon data is critical for project teams to measure and reduce the emissions of their buildings to meet company targets, green building certification requirements, and policy requirements.

Umweltproduktdeklarationen (EPDs) report the embodied carbon and other environmental impacts of a product based on a life cycle assessment (LCA). EPD results are used in building analyses as emission factors for individual products and in procurement to compare the impacts of two functionally equivalent products. Product-specific EPDs are also sometimes compared against product-level embodied carbon (Potenzial zur globalen Erwärmung (GWP)) targets or limits set in policy or project specifications to ensure products meet a minimum threshold for embodied carbon performance. 

Product-level GWP limits establish a maximum embodied carbon value per unit for construction materials and are often based on product-level baseline GWP values. Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) publishes Material Baselines — product-level global warming potential (GWP) baselines for building materials based on product-level emissions intensity data available in EPDs. Owners and project teams often use CLF baseline values as product-scale GWP limits or targets, including them in the construction project specifications. Currently, CLF Material Baselines are only available for North American construction products.  

In summer 2025, CLF completed a landscape analysis of embodied carbon data availability in regions outside North America with the goals of:

  • understanding how LCA/EPD data availability varies globally;
  • informing where targeted initiatives are needed to increase the availability of data; and
  • determining whether adequate EPD data exists to develop CLF Material Baselines outside North America.

This document summarizes our findings and provides initial insights into what data is available to inform low-carbon procurement efforts in Australia, China, and Europe.

Danksagung

The research team would like to thank the many people we interviewed for this project. These 35 individuals from multiple disciplines and dozens of locations across four continents graciously shared their knowledge and insights. Sindhu Raju, CLF Program Assistant, supported the publication production and data visualization.

Urheberrechte ©

Published under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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Autoren

This project is a collaborative, multi-organization effort led by the following individuals:

  • Rachelle Habchi, Low-Carbon Products Lead (CLF)
  • Brook Waldman, Low-Carbon Products Manager (CLF)
  • Mikaela DeRousseau, DeRousseau Consulting
  • Meghan Lewis, Program Director (CLF)

Zitat

Habchi, R., Waldman, B., DeRousseau, M., & Lewis, M. (2025). International Embodied Carbon Data Availability: A Review of Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) Availability in Europe, China, and Australia. Carbon Leadership Forum.

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Emissions from the operations of buildings and infrastructure are significant, well-understood contributors to national and global greenhouse gas emissions. However, the contribution of embodied carbon—emissions associated with the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of construction materials across the life cycle of a building or asset—is neglected by comparison. Even at the global level, embodied carbon estimates are typically based on manufacturing emissions from the production of a handful of the highest-impact materials (e.g. concrete, steel, aluminum, and wood).

Embodied Carbon Pathways to 2050 for the United States

Embodied Carbon Pathways to 2050 for the United States, a collaboration between the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF), RMI, and the University of Washington (UW) Life Cycle Lab, provides an assessment of embodied carbon from US construction materials and explores pathways to align with a 1.5°C global warming limit.

Washington State Carbon Emissions Estimation: 2025 – 2050

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2025 CLF North American Material Baselines

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