The EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) for ceramic tile made in North America debuted at Coverings 2014.

This EPD comprises a comprehensive analysis of over 95% of the ceramic tile produced in North America, based on data collected by PE International and submitted to UL Environment for certification. Both PE International and UL Environment are well-established leaders in the field of sustainability assessment and validation.

The first in the industry, the EPD for tile made in North America can be used by specifiers and other building and design professionals to evaluate and understand ceramic tile’s environmental footprint.

The EPD brings immediate benefits:

• Tile made by the North American manufacturers whose products and operations were evaluated for the composite EPD will contribute toward points in LEED and other green building standards and rating systems, including future versions of the International Green Construction Code (IgCC).
• Having submitted data for the composite EPD, participating manufacturers will start to develop and release product-specific EPDs, which could potentially qualify those products to additionally contribute towards points in LEED and other green building standards/rating systems.
• The sustainability and environmental impacts of North American tile can be directly compared to other flooring products that have an EPD.
• Technical detail on the sustainability of North American tile, based on industry-wide lifecycle data, will be available. This type of information is being increasingly requested by the green building community.

The EPD for tile made in North America is based principally on a lifecycle assessment (LCA), which addresses myriad aspects of ceramic tile: sourcing and extraction of raw materials; manufacturing processes; health, safety and environmental aspects of production and installation; production waste; product delivery considerations like distances to typical markets; use and maintenance of the flooring; and end of product life options such as reuse, repurposing, and disposal.

The EPD for tile made in North America follows the same Product Category Rules (PCRs) used for carpet, resilient flooring, laminate flooring, and wood flooring, allowing all flooring products to be compared. Because the PCRs require consistent reporting, end users can select products based on the specific criteria of importance to them.

Developing an EPD for tile made in North America was a natural next step for the Tile Council of North America (TCNA), which launched Green Squared® in 2012 to provide multi-attribute sustainability evaluation criteria for tile and installation materials and a means—Green Squared Certification—of easily identifying the most sustainable tile products available.

When selecting sustainable products, two important considerations can now be made: 1) Compliance with multi-attribute criteria; and 2) Evaluation based on a lifecycle assessment as reported through the EPD for ceramic tile made in North America. Together, they serve as useful product selection tools that make the design professional’s job easier when building green.

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