EPDs and Transparency

What is an EPD?

An Environmental Product Declaration, or EPD, is a document that discloses the total environmental impact of a product. With this data, we can measure a product’s global warming potential (a.k.a. embodied carbon).

EPDs allow architects to compare and prioritize products with lower environmental impact. Manufacturers can use them to identify areas of improvement.

Why UE Products Do Not Have EPDs

Twenty-eight years ago, Urban Evolutions was formed under the principles of sustainability and circular design, long before these concepts became well-known.

Today, we are sought out by designers seeking materials that they know to be bio-based, reclaimed, and locally manufactured. We can typically tell you exactly where the materials for our products came from, from reclaimed factory floors to boulevard ash trees to sustainably managed oak forests. Our core manufacturing processes stay within the upper Midwest, and wood continues to store carbon after it is harvested and processed.

For this reason, we decided not to invest in creating EPDs for our products at this time.

Material Innovation Rather Than Declaration

We are excited about the industry shift to transparency and are committed to optimizing our products at every step. We fully support EPDs as valuable tools for products with high GHG emissions, and plan to create our own in the future. 

However, since our wood products are low impact, our focus is on material innovation rather than declaration. If you have transparency questions about our products, feel free to ask! We are happy to share what information we can and help you choose the healthiest product for your project.