Over the past year, EC3's EPD database grew faster than it ever has before. More than 53,000 product EPDs were added in the past 12 months, compared with about 18,600 the year before. But the bigger story isn't just the number of new EPDs. It's how they are getting into EC3 - and how much better the underlying data infrastructure has become.
EPDs are the foundation of embodied carbon accounting in construction. The more high-quality, comparable EPD data available in EC3, the easier it is for project teams to understand their material choices and make informed decisions. In July 2025, our message from our Board Chair shared an update on EC3's EPD data. In February 2026, we published Behind the Data: What It Takes to Keep Up EC3’s EPD Database. Now, with another year of work behind us, we are looking at what changed, what drove the growth, and what comes next.
A record year for EPD growth
Currently valid refers to product EPDs that have not reached the end of their validity period.
A year ago, EC3 added roughly 18,625 product EPDs over twelve months. This past year, that number rose to 53,031 - close to 2.8 times as many and a 26.5% increase in the catalogue. The growth did not come from a single source. Several data pipelines expanded at once, with machine-readable sources playing a much larger role through 2026.
What's driving the growth?
EPDs reach EC3 in a few different ways. A program operator may send structured data through an API, we may ingest a machine-readable dataset, or we may work from the published PDF. This year, growth came through all three routes - but machine-readable data changed the scale of what we could bring in.
More European EPD data, at machine-readable scale
One of the biggest changes this year came from Europe. In February 2026, EC3 covered roughly 20% of the datasets available through ECO Platform's ECO Portal. By September, that had grown to 72% - 36,204 of 50,144 datasets. We match each dataset to an EC3 record using the portal's own identifiers, helping us reliably line up the same product across two systems. The ILCD format gives us structured digital data, but it does not always include everything available in the published EPD. We supplement it with AI-based PDF parsing and resolve companies, manufacturing plants, and PCR references against EC3's existing records.
NAPA Emerald Eco-Label syncs daily
Asphalt EPDs arrive through NAPA's openEPD API in a daily sync, with a full reconciliation each week. The daily sync handles the addition of new NAPA EPDs into EC3, while the weekly pass checks broader changes - whether any EPDs were newly published, revised, or removed from the current listing, handling version updates, early expirations, and intentional data removals. A record disappearing from a current listing does not necessarily mean it is invalid, so the reconciliation confirms the difference before EC3 acts on it.
Smart EPD, a close working partnership
We work closely with Smart EPD, a program operator and EPD authoring platform. Smart EPD has more than 750 EPDs in EC3, and our collaboration focuses on completeness: reviewing submissions so the data arrives with the fields people need for meaningful comparison, not simply the minimum required by the format. That direct back-and-forth helps improve data quality for everyone searching EC3, and it is a model we want to extend to more program operators.
Turning EPDs into comparable data
Getting an EPD into EC3 is only part of the job. The real value comes from making data published by different manufacturers, program operators, and regions comparable. Behind every search result is a set of steps that turns source data into something people can use for side by side comparisons (where appropriate), design and procurement decisions, and whole-project calculations.
PDFs become structured data.
Impact values, declared units, LCIA methods, and other information are extracted from published declarations and stored as structured data so they can be searched and compared.
Multi-product EPDs become individual records.
When one declaration covers several products, each product becomes its own record so users can find and compare the specific product they need.
Units are normalized.
The same product type may be reported in different declared units across programs. EC3 normalizes those values on a shared basis within each category.
Environmental indicators speak the same language.
The same indicator can appear under different field names from one program to another. EC3 maps known variants to a consistent vocabulary.
The result sounds simple, but it takes substantial work: a user can compare products from different EPD programs and regions in the same EC3 search.
Want to learn more about how EPD data gets into EC3? Read our Behind the Data blog post for a closer look at the data ingestion process behind EC3.
A major renewal wave is coming
Growth is only half of the picture. EPDs also have validity windows, and this fall EC3 is approaching an unusually large renewal wave. When an EPD reaches the end of its validity period, keeping the catalog current depends on updated declarations and reliable renewal pipelines.
The timing is especially concentrated. Over the next twelve months, 63,205 currently valid product EPDs reach the end of their validity. In October 2026 alone, 25,061 EPD records do so - about 15% of the valid catalogue. Much of that comes from the 2021 cohort of North American concrete EPDs reaching the end of a five-year window. For project teams, there is a practical takeaway: if a specification or baseline you maintain relies on EPDs issued in 2021, now is a good time to check those validity dates.
The renewal wave also shows why the data pipelines behind EC3 matter. New and replacement EPDs need to move into the database efficiently as older declarations reach the end of their validity, so users can continue working with current data.
Where we're going next
Machine-readable European coverage now sits at 72%, with more datasets still to bring in and more program partnerships to build. We are also developing a resolution layer that can recognize when records arriving from different sources refer to the same product, even when the identifiers do not match, so users see one product rather than duplicates.
EC3 2.0, now in active development, builds on this work with a redesigned data model: a canonical, openly documented EPD schema that handles unit normalization, indicator naming, and source provenance by design. The goal is not simply to hold more EPDs, but to make a growing global dataset easier to maintain, understand, and compare.
Help us keep improving EC3
EC3's EPD database is only as useful as the data behind it, and improving that data is a shared effort. Every record in EC3 carries its source, so if something does not look right, the EPD behind it is one click away. Send us the record and let us know what you found - that is often the fastest way for us to investigate and correct an issue. If you are a program operator publishing EPDs and do not yet have a direct data connection with EC3, we would like to hear from you. Expanding those connections is one of the ways we can make EPD data more complete, current, and useful across the industry. Building Transparency is a nonprofit, and this work is made possible through the support of our members and sponsors.
Questions or interested in working with us? support@buildingtransparency.org
Sincerely,
The Building Transparency team
