openEPD is an open data format for passing digital third-party verified Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) among Program Operators, EPD Databases, Life Cycle Analysis tools, design tools, reporting, and procurement.
Unlike print or PDF EPDs, openEPD provides a shared and precise format to express and refer to EPDs in ways that modern databases can use. openEPD can be used alongside a printable document, or can generate printable EPDs.
Unlike existing formats such as ILCD+EPD, it enforces a key set of guarantees for interoperable data processing, including uniqueness of organizations/plants, precise PCR references, and dated version control.
Through work with 40,000 EPDs from 15 program operators, openEPD has become flexible enough to handle documents from different programs, jurisdictions, and industry sectors. These guarantees make it easy to use in compliance checking, regulatory reporting, procurement, and research.
The openEPD format is extensible. Standard extensions exist for concrete products, and for documenting supply-chain specific data.
openEPD has built-in handling for uncertainty, upstream data sourcing, and product performance specifications, which together provide a major step forward in enabling comparability.
The openEPD API is free to use both in open systems such as EC3, or in proprietary systems. It is compatible with SQL, NoSQL, or Graph databases and a wide variety of workflows. It is based on the industry-standard OpenAPI 3.0 RESTful web interface and the JSON data format. BuildingTransparency.org will maintain an openEPD interface to its EC3 database.
The openEPD format is more fully described in the openEPD Interchange Format document. A full technical specification and examples are available to selected pilot partners.