New insight: How does automated EPD creation work?
DE
Centrum Paele is Europe’s largest manufacturer of prefabricated concrete piles and steel joints for large-scale infrastructure projects. Headquartered in Vejle, Denmark, the company operates as part of the Centrum Group, with seven production facilities across Europe in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Poland, and the UK with a combined annual capacity of 3.2 million linear meters of piles.
Since 2016, Centrum Paele has proactively worked on improving energy efficiency and reducing their environmental footprint. As part of their broader vision, they aim for full environmental transparency and set out to adopt Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for all their products, even before customer demand and regulatory standards required it.
Centrum Paele’s EPD creation process was slow and costly. It took up to a year, leading to outdated product data in the final EPDs and high administrative effort.
Emile Fabrice Angue, Head of Sustainability at Centrum Paele, explains: “The data collection itself wasn’t the most time-consuming part, as we already had the data in place. The real delay came from the multiple steps involved: sending the data to specialists, waiting for them to calculate and analyse it, and then reviewing the results. This back-and-forth process meant we were often left waiting for long periods before receiving the final EPD.”
Costs were high and unpredictable. “It was not just the time - it was also the price. The process was expensive, and we weren’t getting full value with the long wait times for certification.”
Centrum Paele was looking for a solution that would allow them to create EPDs faster, at a lower cost, and with the flexibility to reflect the latest product updates.
Time-to-EPD reduced from 1 year to under 2 weeks, keeping them up to date and meeting growing demand for environmental transparency
Significant cost reduction, making portfolio-wide EPDs financially viable
Data-backed discussions using Emidat’s product comparison feature
Ability to use product-specific EPDs as a key differentiator in tenders
Emidat’s platform automated the EPD process, reducing verification time to under two weeks. It enabled full control over the process, increased efficiency, and allowed for the generation of EPDs for a wide range of products across multiple locations.
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[With Emidat] We expected it would take us three weeks when we were publishing our first EPDs but in under two weeks we had them already.
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Emile Fabrice Angue, Head of Sustainability at Centrum Paele
The main advantage was to react faster to customer demands and use EPDs as a competitive advantage. “Now, it’s an advantage when we bid for a project, as we can present our products with their EPDs. This gives us an edge over competitors who don’t have the same environmental transparency.”
This was possible at a much lower cost. “When I look at the budget we allocated for a few EPDs and compare it to the budget we use for the Emidat system, it’s clear that both now and in the long term, it’s a much more efficient investment.”
The efficiency also enabled Centrum Paele to keep EPDs up to date and include them as a decision basis in discussions.
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One of the features I really appreciate is the product comparison system, because it’s so visual. It allowed us to compare the same product with different types of concrete and see which performed better. It was no longer just a theoretical discussion in meetings, we had concrete data with the percentage differences.
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Emile Fabrice Angue, Head of Sustainability at Centrum Paele
The new approach not only streamlines the EPD generation and verification but also unlocks new possibilities. Centrum Paele can now offer product-specific EPDs for a broader range of products and across multiple locations - something that was previously too expensive and complex. “Our goal now is to implement it in other countries and produce more EPDs in our other factories so that we can have optimized use of the whole system.”
Centrum Paele particularly appreciated Emidat’s customer support by LCA experts “It’s hard to mention just one moment, because what I really appreciated with Emidat was their availability. Whenever we had an issue, they listened and brought solutions. They were always ready to help and that gave us the flexibility to move forward quickly. That’s why we found it to be a great partnership.”
Centrum Paele is not stopping here.
The company is continuing its expansion with Emidat’s platform, already implemented in Denmark, and with plans for global rollout, including locations in Sweden, Germany, Poland, and the UK.
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We’re committed to having an EPD for every product we make, not just in Denmark but across our entire operation. With Emidat, we’re on the right path to achieving this.
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Emile Fabrice Angue, Head of Sustainability at Centrum Paele
The goal is to generate EPDs for all products and ensure full transparency with environmental standards across their entire product portfolio.
For those looking to start or scale their own EPD journey, Emile says “If someone asked me, I would surely recommend them to use this platform, because first they get the service they deserve, and second, they can produce EPDs for their products quickly, which are published, verified, and certified.”