Advancing low embodied carbon transparency: EPDs for ClarkDietrich cold-formed steel framing products

Challenge

ClarkDietrich is one of North America’s leading manufacturers of steel framing products. As demand for low-embodied carbon building materials accelerated, fueled by initiatives such as the Inflation Reduction Act, California’s Buy Clean legislation, and growing requirements from architects and government building programs, the client recognized that its existing EPD development process could no longer meet evolving market expectations.

The client’s previous EPD, developed by another consultant, was based on generic industry-average data, including both Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) and Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) steel, rather than supplier-specific information. While that methodology was common and acceptable at the time, it did not reflect the specific environmental performance of ClarkDietrich’s supply chain.

With steel increasingly subject to global warming potential (GWP) limits and heightened scrutiny of environmental claims, ClarkDietrich needed a new EPD program grounded in EAF-specific primary data to credibly demonstrate its low embodied-carbon product claim.

The challenge was significant on several fronts:

• Data ownership: Identifying which EAF suppliers in the steel supply chain held the relevant environmental data, and whether that data accurately represented the materials ClarkDietrich was purchasing. The ability to isolate and track EAF-specific steel sourcing across the supply chain was critical to meeting the demand for low embodied carbon products.
• Supplier sensitivity: Many of ClarkDietrich's raw material suppliers, particularly producers of steel coil, are also direct competitors to one another. Facilitating data sharing across a supply chain with competitive dynamics requires careful relationship management.
• Scale: The project needed to account for supply chain and material sourcing variations across 11 manufacturing facilities spanning North America.

Solution

ClarkDietrich engaged our team in late 2023, choosing us over their previous EPD practitioner for our approach to supplier-specific data collection and willingness to go directly into the supply chain rather than rely on secondary data sources. The relationship developed through industry association connections and ClarkDietrich's existing relationship with our team.

We led a comprehensive EPD development engagement built on primary data, limited to EAF-specific data from ClarkDietrich's supply chain, thereby eliminating BOF steel from the scope of the EPD. Compared to ClarkDietrich's 2021 EPD, the new program reflected approximately a 30% reduction in GWP.

Impact

The result of our engagement, conducted as WAP Sustainability (now SLR), is a verified, market-ready EPD that positions ClarkDietrich as the first steel framing manufacturer to offer low-embodied carbon products nationwide. The EPD gives ClarkDietrich the documentation needed to compete in an increasingly regulated and sustainability-conscious construction market, while giving architects, engineers, and specifiers a credible basis for selecting lower-carbon steel framing products.

The published EPD is available at https://www.environdec.com/library/epd12752.