An Open Format for the world’s Digital EPDs

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 digital-document formats like ILCD+EPD, openEPD is a modern, RESTful Open API that enforces a key set of guarantees for interoperable data processing, including the use of natural IDs for organizations, plants, and verifiers. It also has precise version control (so old data does not linger), specific PCR references, and natural handling of uncertainty and specificity.

Uniquely, openEPD also has support for standardized functional properties (e.g. compressive strength, thermal resistivity) for each industrial sector, to allow reasonably fair comparisons. PCR Committees and industry bodies can specify their own extensions to openEPD without breaking interoperability.

Why openEPD?

Interoperability and Portability

EPDs are used worldwide, but digital EPD systems can’t exchange data without a structured API that clearly defines names, number formats, and units.

To allow comparability of products worldwide, openEPD transparently documents uncertainty, specificity, functional specifications, and LCIA methods.

Clarity and Accountability

Unlike older digital formats such as ILCD+EPD, openEPD uses standardized ‘natural ids’ to uniquely identify companies, plants, and people without a central registry. This makes it easy to identify responsible parties, interconnect systems, remove duplicate data, and avoid misattribution.

Free, Open, and Extensible

openEPD is offered free under the Apache 2.0 open license.

PCR committees and Program Operators can extend openEPD with the industry-specific fields and identifiers they need to show functional equivalence.

With climate accountability becoming central to commerce and international trade, we need high-quality open standards.

Using openEPD

Explore

Try

Develop

Get Involved

The openEPD forum is a venue for LCA specialists, developers, and regulators to collaborate on making EPD systems interoperate, improve the standard, and drive adoption.

Submissions to openEPD are public, and any IP submitted for use must be identified and offered on a RAND basis.