WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Wood Council (AWC) has been selected for a $6 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to increase transparency in the U.S. wood product industry by further developing Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) and Product Category Rules (PCR) for the industry. AWC’s successful grant proposal was submitted as part the EPA’s Inflation Reduction Act funding that seeks to reduce embodied greenhouse gas emissions for construction materials and products.
“This grant will ensure existing data gaps of wood products’ environmental performance are filled, furthering the industry’s commitment to radical transparency and informing our remarkable sustainability story,” AWC President & CEO Jackson Morrill said. “The projects that will be funded from this grant will bring the whole of the industry together to collect and report life cycle data for the U.S. wood products industry. We thank EPA for its commitment to collecting robust data that will ultimately support meaningful reductions of carbon in the built environment.”
Overall, this grant aims to support work that will reduce embodied carbon emissions in building products globally and locally through the development of an EPD generator, creating a funding mechanism for mills to develop their own EPDs, educating AEC firms on whole building life cycle assessments utilizing EPDs, and other projects that will result in more robust data for the U.S. wood products sector at large.
“This grant ensures coordination among the industry to fill existing data gaps and bring the whole of the industry together to collect and report life cycle impact data for U.S. wood products,” said Rachael Jamison, AWC’s Vice President of Markets and Sustainability.
AWC is currently working with the EPA and partners to refine project scope and timelines. The grant supports work over a 5-year period.
Partners included in the grant include the Composite Panel Association, Treated Wood Council, U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, and WoodWorks.
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