Life cycle assessment (LCA) & Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) program development

Challenge

In 2022, the flooring industry underwent a fundamental market shift in terms of corporate and product sustainability. What once started as a checkbox compliance exercise, “Do we have an LCA/EPD?”, became a genuine competitive space for the market, prompting long-standing businesses to move away from industry-averaged Global Warming Potential (GWP) results toward granular, product-specific assessments that account for real variations in manufacturing.

Customers began heavily weighing GWP in purchasing decisions, and our client, a global commercial and residential flooring manufacturer, saw this opportunity in the market to innovate their standard LCAs with meaningful impact and data-driven GWP reduction strategies.

The Core Issues:

1. Market Competition on GWP: The flooring industry matured faster than other sectors in competing on actual global warming potential values, not just having certifications. The client's GWP values were higher than those of their competitors, threatening their market position with carbon-conscious customers.
2. LCA Standard Evolution: Historically, a single EPD could cover a range of products using averaged data.
   By 2022, the industry demanded detailed results accounting for product variations. For carpet products specifically, face weight (the amount of yarn tufted into the carpet) contributes significantly to GWP variation, yet yarn is typically the largest driver of overall impact. Generic EPDs no longer meet the customers’ expectations and program operator requirements.
3. Operational Inefficiency: The client needed to determine whether their higher GWP was due to legitimate product differences, non-compliant peer reporting, or genuine opportunities for reformulation and operational improvement. They required a collaborative partner with deep expertise in LCA to navigate this uncertainty.

Solution

With over a decade of partnership, our team understands the client’s operations, supply chains, and the manufacturing complexities at the heart of their business. We were a natural fit for this next evolution of their sustainable journey and innovating their business’s strategic advisory.

The result was a complete advisory ecosystem, including supply chain engagement, quarterly compliance validation, and strategic guidance on evolving standards (RECs, RTCs, biogenic carbon).

Impact

Over 11 years, our team completed 75+ lifecycle assessments for the client across their global product portfolio, with 29 verified EPDs published in the last four years alone. This work directly supported the client's goals of achieving competitive GWP positioning: three eco-recycled product lines were developed and verified through our guidance, combining recycled content, renewable energy credits, and biochar integration. These products represent measurable GWP reductions compared to standard offerings and are now marketed as industry-leading low-carbon alternatives, directly addressing the client's competitive challenge.

The impact extended beyond individual product certifications. By implementing quarterly conformity assessments of mass-balance accounting, we validated that the client's environmental claims—recycled-content allocations, renewable-energy credit purchases, and GWP reductions—matched actual purchasing and manufacturing data. This verification layer provided customers and regulators with confidence that reported GWP improvements were real, not accounting artifacts. As regulations like EU ESPR and Digital Product Passports emerge, the client's foundation of rigorous, third-party-validated LCA data positions them ahead of competitors that are still building their sustainability infrastructure.