The PEP (Product Environmental Profile) is an environmental declaration that has been mandatory since the RE2020 came into force. If you are a player in the EEE or HVAC-R sector and you supply your products for the construction and operation of new buildings, you will be asked to provide this document.
The PEP is the environmental identity card of a product. It draws on the results of a product Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), making it possible to know a product's impact across several environmental indicators and over its entire life cycle.
What is the timeline?
Producing a PEP breaks down into 4 steps:
- Getting to grips with the reference documents, which set out the overall framework of the PEP and the rules specific to each product category
- 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 P.E.P. association, whose purpose is to set a precise framework around the assessment of EEE and HVAC equipment.
This framework has two levels:
- A global methodological and editorial framework, applicable to all product categories;
- A specific framework, which makes it possible to adapt the analysis to the specifics of each product category.
The PCR (Product Category Rules) establishes a generic framework: which indicators to study, using which calculation methodologies, what information to show on the PEP report, how to have it verified, and so on. It is the first document to study when producing a PEP.
The PSR, for their part, gather the rules dedicated to specific product categories. There are 18 of them, from cables to radiators, including boilers and solar collectors. These PSR notably specify the functional unit to take into account for the impact calculation, as well as the study scope to use, category by category. They are drafted and prepared by the professional bodies responsible for a given product category.
Which indicators must be calculated for the PEP?
The indicators to calculate are detailed within the PCR. The move to PCR 4 in 2021 harmonises the indicators and calculation methods with the PEF, the European environmental assessment protocol.
The environmental indicators to calculate are defined as mandatory or optional.
Mandatory indicators: environmental impact indicators (climate change, ozone layer depletion, acidification, eutrophication of fresh, marine and terrestrial waters, photochemical ozone formation, depletion of abiotic resources, water use) and inventory flow indicators (resource use, renewable and non-renewable primary energy use, use of energy, water and secondary material resources).
Optional indicators: fine particle emissions, ionizing radiation, human health, ecotoxicity (fresh water), human toxicity, land use / soil quality impacts, total primary energy use over the life cycle.
The PEP report
The PEP report is the document that gathers all the information related to the study. The details of how to write it are set out 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.
While mainly quantitative in nature, it is nonetheless possible to add some qualitative information in order to give more depth to the product's overall impact, and to any impact-reduction policies implemented at various stages of the product's life cycle.
Verifying and certifying the results
Once the PEP has been produced, it must be validated by one of the verifiers certified by the PEP association. This work consists of validating the PEP report's compliance with the rules set out in the PCR used, particularly from an editorial standpoint.
Three elements are therefore checked:
- the LCA methodology (LCA report, software, processes used),
- the plausibility of the results,
- the ethics of the information published.
PEP verifiers are accredited by the P.E.P. association and must be independent, meaning they must not have been involved either in carrying out the LCA or in producing the PEP being verified.