On Toxnot you can use your supply chain data to report out to various sustianability, circularity, and compliance reports. Two of those are the HPD (Health Product Declaration) and the PCDS (Product Circularity Data Sheet). We look at the comparison of the two and when you'd use each report.
What is an HPD?
HPD stands for Health Product Declaration, it is a self declared list of ingredients in building materials as claimed by the product manufacturer. It is relevant for products used in the built environment.
The label itself contains an inventory of chemical substances which are characterized by the level of concern for each ingredient. The majority of the chemicals are disclosed by the manufacturer in the interest of providing greater transparency. Thereby, architects and relevant building related constituents can make educated purchasing decisions. HPDs are one of the most common ways to gather documentation for LEED v4 and v4.1. HPDs are also used for WELL building Certification, specifically for the Feature 97. Material Transparency - Part 1. Material Information that requires at least 50% of interior finishes, materials and furnishings to be evaluated and disclosed. The HPD standard was created by the NGO Health Product Declaration Collaborative and can be found on their website.
What is a PCDS report?
The PCDS report establishes an official standard for a product’s supply chain circularity data. The standard is designed to convey data related to the type of end-of-use cycle a product should belong to. The PCDS aims to answer the question: should the product be reused, reparaired, recycled or enter a material bank for new products?
The intent is to provide buyers with a greater ability to get the information they need to make informed decisions about purchasing property. The report consists of a list of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ statements along with guidance for each statement. The data in the report does not require confidential data, it's machine readable and automatically assembled when completed on Toxnot. Lastly, it shows how or if the data was audited.
The standard was developed by the Ministry of the Economy of Luxembourg with their partner Positive ImpaKT consultancy and 50+ other industry, NGO and government agency representatives.
What are the similarities of HPD vs PCDS?
The key similarity of these sustainability reports is that they're both used to convey data on standardized sustainability and circularity fields. Both of these reports can be built on Toxnot as well as other supply chain management platforms.
What are the key differences between an HPD vs PCDS?
Launching in 2018 versus 2012, PCDS is the newer of the two standards. The ministry of Luxembourg created the PCDS because when it observed the increasing number of sustainability reporting standards, there was no singular standard that was applicable to all industries. In short, it is used more broadly than HPDs which are specific to the building industry.
What really distinguishes a PCDS from an HPD (that's key) is that the PCDS is directly linked to circularity attributes of manufacturers' products based on how the manufacturer designed them. If a company is interested in circularity, suppliers and manufacturers now have a way to share those circularity attributes in a standardized way in a level of detail that the HPD doesn't provide. A PCDS not only is a disclosure form (like an HPD) but takes product data and details it for any downstream stakeholders on what they'd need to know for circular objectives.
For manufacturers, this is super exciting because it gives them a standardized data sheet with uniform metrics (specifically for their circularity goals) that is now supported across various platforms. These metrics include:
- Product and Company Identification
- Composition/Information on product constituents
- Design for better use
- Design for disassembly
- Design for re-use
Learn more about PCDS reports in this recent blog post.
You can create your sustainability reports right now!
You can create your HPD and PCDS reports instantly with Toxnot. Our platform is the most flexible and user-friendly supply chain management software on the market. Sign-up with a free account today and scale to meet your data needs.
Toxnot imports your data (in various common formats), helps you access any missing data in your portfolio, and will then instantly analyze and report your sustainability, circularity, or compliance reports. Best of all, no prior implementation is required to get started. So why wait?
