The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Tuesday that a joint project of the National Precast Concrete Association (NPCA), Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) and American Concrete Pipe Association (ACPA) has been selected to receive a $9.975 million grant in the EPA’s Reducing Embodied Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Construction Materials and Products Grant Program.
The project, one of 38 selected for nearly $160 million in funding, will focus on updating the precast concrete Product Category Rule (PCR) and producing product-specific Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). The project will entail developing an EPD generator and providing training and support to member companies for producing EPDs. The project also allows for the creation of EPDs under the current PCR while the update is conducted.
NPCA collaborated with PCI and ACPA to apply for the grant in January. The result is a five-year project that will provide valuable resources to manufacturers and allow the associations to defray the cost for their members to create or update their EPDs.
“Precast concrete is essential to the nation’s infrastructure, making it critical that the industry is prepared to meet the requirements,” NPCA President and CEO Nick Rhoad said. “Together with PCI and ACPA, we will be able to provide resources that put our members at the forefront of the effort to create more sustainable concrete products.”
Visit precast.org/environmental-product-declarations to learn more about EPDs, how they are utilized and the process of securing these documents.