EPA Requests Feedback on Draft PCR Criteria

To support their new Label Program for Low Embodied Carbon Construction Materials, which originated under the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued draft criteria for Product Category Rules (PCRs).

PCRs are guidelines for creating Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), which convey the environmental impact of products. The EPA created the draft PCR criteria to help further consistency across PCRs with regard to data quality and transparency in EPDs. The draft criteria was created with feedback from stakeholders and their Request for Information that was issued last year. The EPA will require PCRs to meet this criteria to be eligible for use in their Label Program for Low Embodied Carbon Construction Materials.

UL Solutions has worked with dozens of industries to create PCRs for building construction products. The EPA-proposed PCR criteria are relevant to all our PCR stakeholders. UL Solutions would need to adopt the EPA’s criteria into our policies to allow our PCRs to be used in the EPA’s Low Embodied Carbon Construction Materials Label Program.

UL Solutions encourages building construction product manufacturers, trade associations, service providers and other stakeholders to review the criteria and provide feedback to the EPA by the Thursday, April 4, 2024, deadline.

Written comments should be submitted here to docket EPA-HQ-OPPT-2024-0075.