North American EPD for ceramic tiles has been certified for the next 5 years

Industry-wide EPD demonstrates North American ceramic tile has a significantly lower global warming potential compared to LVT

Tile Council of North America (TCNA) announced on April 21st that the 2020 North American industry-wide Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for ceramic tile has been certified by Underwriter's Laboratories (UL) and published to UL's publicly accessible database.

Simply stated, this industry-wide EPD is a report of the environmental footprint of the North American ceramic tile industry.

This EPD, valid for the next five years, updates the previous North American industry-wide EPD for ceramic tile, which expired at the end of 2019. Effective immediately, products covered by the EPD can be used to satisfy architectural and green building specification criteria, including those established by LEED v4.1.

Over 85% of North American ceramic tiles are covered by the EPD and specifically those from American Wonder Porcelain, Arto Brick, Crossville, Dal-Tile Corporation, Del Conca USA, Florida Tile, Interceramic USA, Ironrock, Porcelanite-Lamosa, Portobello America, Quarry Tile Co., StonePeak Ceramics, and Vitromex USA.

The ceramic tile’s environmental impacts reported by the EPD are significantly lower than those reported by EPDs for flooring comprised of plastic based material (such as LVT luxury vinyl tiles and rigid core board planks). In particular, a direct comparison reveals that 75-year global warming potential and fossil fuel resource depletion of LVT are two and three times higher, respectively, than ceramic tile's, while rigid core board's values are three and five times higher.

"Global warming potential and fossil fuel depletion throughout the full life cycle of a product are key metrics in characterizing carbon footprint. Not only does the North American industry-wide EPD for ceramic tile evidence a generally low carbon footprint, it also shows ceramic tile to have the lowest overall impacts in photochemical oxidant creation (smog), ozone depletion, acidification, and eutrophication potential when compared to publicly available EPDs for competitive flooring materials," said Bill Griese, TCNA's Director of Standards Development and Sustainability Initiatives. "Ceramic tile is the proven green choice for the good of the environment."