WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Wood Council (AWC) submitted a grant proposal to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) aimed at increased transparency in the U.S. wood product industry by further developing Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) and Product Category Rules (PCR) for the industry. The $10 million 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.
Rachael Jamison, AWC’s Vice President of Markets and Sustainability said, “This grant, if awarded, would ensure existing data gaps are filled and bring the whole of the industry together to collect and report life cycle data for U.S. wood products. The funds would be transformational by supporting holistic, whole life cycle approach to data collection and reporting.”
AWC’s proposal includes multiple projects and pass-through partnerships that will work to reduce emissions globally and locally. Specifically, the grant would allow AWC to develop an EPD generator for structural wood products to more efficiently calculate EPDs as well as make wood product EPDs more accessible. In addition, the proposal includes projects to broaden the database for whole building life cycle assessments and advocate for its use to decarbonize the built environment.
“We see significant value in AWC’s efforts to collect consistent life cycle impacts data for EPDs across the whole of the U.S. wood products industry,” said Stacy Smedley, the executive director of Building Transparency, an organization dedicated to providing data and tools to the building industry to address embodied carbon’s role in climate change. “External funding will be essential for these projects in helping develop the necessary tools and data platforms to report the climate impacts of U.S. manufactured wood products.”
The EPA will announce grant recipients in May and funding will be distributed beginning in August.
###