The PEP, or Product Environmental Profile, is an environmental statement that has been mandatory to provide since the implementation of RE2020. Indeed, if you are a player in the EEE or climate engineering sector, and you supply your products in the context of the construction and operation of new buildings, you will be asked to provide this document.
The PEP is the environmental identity card for a product. It takes up the results of a Product Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and thus makes it possible to know the impact of the product according to various environmental indicators, and over its entire life cycle.
What chronology?
Its production is divided into 4 steps:
- Handling the reference documents, which detail the overall framework of the PEP and the rules specific to each category of product concerned
- The life cycle inventory (LCI) which then makes it possible to calculate the indicators
- Preparing the PEP report
- Its verification and certification
What are the reference documents?
The PEP was created by the association P.E.P., an association whose aim is to establish a precise framework around the evaluation of EEE and climate engineering.
This framework is twofold:
- A global methodological and editorial framework, applicable to all product categories;
- A specific framework, which makes it possible to adapt the analysis to the specificities of each product category.
The PCR or Product Category Rules established a generic framework: which indicators to study, via which calculation methodologies, what information to appear on the PEP report, how to have it checked, etc.
It is the first document to be studied as part of the creation of a PEP.
Les PSR, for their part, include rules dedicated to specific product categories. There are 18, from cables to radiators, boilers and solar collectors.
These PSRs will in particular specify the functional unit to be taken into account for the impact calculation as well as the scope of study to be used, category by category. They are written and prepared by the professional unions responsible for a given product category.
What indicators should be calculated for the PEP?
The indicators to be calculated are detailed within the PCR.
The transition to PCR 4 in 2021 allows for the harmonization of indicators and calculation methods with the PEF, the European environmental assessment protocol.
The environmental indicators to be calculated are defined as mandatory or optional.
Mandatory indicators:
a) Environmental impact indicators: Climate change, Ozone depletion, Acidification, Eutrophication of fresh, marine and terrestrial waters, Photochemical ozone formation, depletion of abiotic resources, water requirement. b) Inventory flow indicators: indicators of inventory flow: indicators of use of resources: indicators of use of resources of resources of resources of resources of resources of resources of resources of resources of energy, water and secondary materials (for example, combustion of waste).
Optional indicators:
a) Environmental impact indicators: (Fine particle emissions, ionizing radiation, ionizing radiation, human health, Ecotoxicity (fresh water), Human toxicity, Impacts related to land use/soil quality.
(b) Inventory flow indicators: Total use of primary energy during the life cycle,
The PEP report
The PEP report is the document that brings together all the information related to the study. The details of its writing are indicated within the PCR.
It specifies the nature of the product, the PCR version used to conduct the study, the software and databases used for the calculations, as well as the analysis results and inventory flows.
Mainly quantitative in nature, it is however possible to add some qualitative information to it in order to give more dimension to the overall impact of the product, and to the possible impact reduction policies implemented at different levels of the product's life cycle.
Verification and certification of results
Once the PEP has been completed, it is necessary to have it validated by one of the verifiers certified by the PEP association. This work consists in validating the conformity of the PEP report with the rules set out in the PCR used, in particular on the editorial level.
Three elements are thus checked:
- the LCA methodology (LCA report, software, processes used),
- the plausibility of the results,
- the ethics of published information.
The PEP verifiers are authorized by the P.E.P. association and must be independent, that is, he must not have been involved in either the execution of the LCA or in the realization of the PEP to be verified.
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