Summary and conclusions

Programinstruktioner for MVD-DK

Background and purpose
In the year 2000, The Danish EPA established a working group to discuss the conditions concerning a Danish programme for Environmental Product Declarations (EPD). In 2003, the EPA called for tenders for the development and testing of a Danish EPD programme.

This “Programme Instructions” report is part of the Danish EPD programme (MVD-DK).

The aim of the general programme instructions is to ensure that EPDs are developed using common methods and calculation rules, so as to permit the combination of data from EPDs and to allow the comparison between EPDs from the same product category in the programme.

The study
The Danish EPD programme is open to all product groups and all countries. MVD-DK is developed according to the international ISO standard for type III EPDs ISO 14025 and prepared in cooperation with a consultancy consortium and a large numbers of industrial companies and organisations.

ISO 14025 stipulates that general programme instructions and product category rules (PCR) must be based on a life cycle assessment (LCA) and EPDs must contain life-cycle-based environmental data and additional information that meets the requirements in the international LCA standards, ISO 14040 and 14044. The requirements for eco-labelling and environmental product declarations in ISO standards 14020 and parts of 14021 must also be fulfilled.

The ISO standards do not stipulate the use of any particular LCA method. The method, however, must be recognised and generally accepted. The Danish EDIP method (Environmental Design of Industrial Production) is used in the Danish EPD programme, incorporating the latest improvements in the field of LCA, including consequence LCA.

Results
The development and testing of MVD-DK has resulted in the following publications:

Website www.mvd.dk with description of the programme, organisation, registration, price, etc.
Programme Instructions flashings for roof windows
Template for PCR
Guidance for PCR
Guidance for review of PCR
Guidance for verification of EPD
PCR and EPD for selected products

The following results are available only for those who apply for MVDs:

Template for EPD (only for EPD applicants)
Template for EPD report (only for EPD applicants)