Skip to main content
An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a standardized, third-party-verified document that reports a product’s environmental impacts across its life-cycle. EPDs follow Product Category Rules (PCRs) — which define what to measure and how — and are published through a program operator that manages verification and hosting. Variable’s Declarations workspace turns a verified Product LCA into a complete EPD draft that you can send to a program operator for review and publication.

​
The publishing workflow

​
Program operators

Variable currently integrates with:
  • SmartEPD — connect via Company Settings → Integrations with a SmartEPD API key. Once connected, you can browse workspaces, PCCs, and projects directly from the Declaration sync dialog.
If you use a different program operator, you can still export the EPD data from Variable and submit it manually.

​
Re-syncing after edits

If you edit the underlying Product LCA after a successful sync, the Declaration’s sync state moves to out_of_date. Re-run the sync from the EPD page to push the latest results to the operator. Variable will update the existing remote document rather than creating a new one. Once an EPD has been synced, the sync popover’s title — the operator’s name — links straight to the EPD in the operator’s app. You don’t have to open each Declaration to check where it stands: every card in the Declarations list shows its latest sync state, so a failed or out-of-date sync is visible at a glance.

​
What’s in a published EPD

A typical EPD published via Variable includes:
  • Product description — name, declared unit, and reference flow.
  • System boundaries — which life-cycle stages (A1–A3, A4, A5, B1–B7, C1–C4, D) are included.
  • Impact results — values per indicator (GWP-fossil, GWP-total, AP, EP, ODP, POCP, ADPE, ADPF, water use, and others) per life-cycle module.
  • Scenarios — transport, installation, use, maintenance, repair, replacement, refurbishment, operational energy and water use, end-of-life, and benefits and loads beyond the system boundary.
  • Data quality — DQR scores, the ecoinvent / DEFRA / Ember dataset versions used, and the Declaration’s data quality discussion narrative.
See Life-cycle stages explained for the EN 15804+A2 stage reference, and Impact indicators for the full list of indicators Variable reports.