A pioneer in environmentally conscious design in New Zealand, award-winning designer David Trubridge is no stranger to the integral role of sustainability and transparency within a business. In 2015, his company David Trubridge Ltd. with thinkstep-anz became the first to register an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) under the EPD Australasia Programme. Five years later, an extensive EPD update demonstrates the same commitment to transparency, covering 56 lighting products in six finishes.
An open book
An EPD is a third-party verified sustainability document that communicates the environmental impact of a product across a wide range of indicators to identify strengths and risks and thus, drive sustainable performance. “I love the EPD because it is like an open book. This is us; this is what we do, this is our product,” said the designer in an interview with thinkstep-anz’s Jeff Vickers.
David Trubridge’s introduction to EPDs came from its natural predecessor Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). An LCA provides environmental information on the full life cycle of a product and is the basis of an EPD.
A life cycle approach
An LCA study helped the local designer to achieve a deep understanding of the environmental impacts of their products, including the carbon footprint and key hotspots to focus on. The LCA revealed that transportation of products was a significant area for improvement and led to the redesign of their lighting products. Previously sold as preassembled products, the current kitset design popular with customers came about as a result of the LCA. The kitset design enables the products to be packaged flat and gives customers a chance to engage with the nature-inspired design when assembling it themselves. The outcome was a significant decrease in volume of packaging required, thus improving packaging efficiency and lowering related costs. This in turn led to a positive impact on the overall environmental footprint of the products.
From LCA to EPD
The natural progression was to communicate these results in a transparent, credible manner which brought David Trubridge to an EPD. “Often, our responses to environmental concerns are emotionally driven but life cycle thinking is a way of seeing a more objective picture of possible impacts. I’m just telling you the facts and I like that,” said Trubridge of the transparent nature of an EPD. An EPD is a public declaration to customers and other stakeholders, “it demonstrates our desire to be proactive and transparent about the environmental impacts of our product,” says Trubridge.
Optimising value for SMEs
Although EPDs have become a standard part of decision-making elsewhere in the world, they are relatively new to New Zealand and Australia. Although EPDs are rising in popularity, small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs) have yet to fully grasp the opportunities they present. “EPDs are often perceived as an expensive tool only for larger manufacturers. thinkstep-anz’s efficient tools and processes now enable SMEs like David Trubridge to succeed in the rapidly growing green building market worldwide,” says Barbara Nebel, CEO of thinkstep-anz. Furthermore, EPDs also offer tangible business value by communicating the available opportunities for cutting costs and increasing efficiency. EPD updates present an opportunity to find new ways to improve processes and enhance product development, regardless of a company’s size as demonstrated by David Trubridge.
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