our first externally verified EPDs
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Four new declarations provide independently verified environmental data for painted and galvanized ductile iron VSH Shurjoint fittings and couplings
a new milestone in transparent product data
We have released four externally verified Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for VSH Shurjoint painted and galvanized fittings and couplings. This furthers our commitment to providing verified and transparent environmental data: these EPDs developed internally by our team and submitted for independent external verification.
For customers, this means transparent, standardised information about the environmental impacts associated with these products. The declarations use primary production data from the manufacturing site in Taiwan and follow the European standard EN 15804+A2.
The publication builds on the environmental product data already available across our portfolio. It also strengthens the quality and credibility of the information customers can use in building assessments, project calculations, carbon reporting, tender responses and procurement decisions.
what is an EPD and why does it matter?
An Environmental Product Declaration is a standardised document that reports quantified environmental information about a product or product group. Its figures are based on a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which calculates impacts using defined rules, data sources and life-cycle scenarios.
Our new declarations follow EN 15804+A2, the core European standard for construction-product EPDs. They report indicators including climate-change impact, resource use, waste and other environmental flows across the relevant life-cycle stages.
An EPD does not label a product as “green” or automatically prove that it is environmentally superior. Its purpose is transparency: giving specifiers, designers, contractors and customers consistent information that can support project-level assessment and more informed decisions.
behind the declaration: almost two years of work
The figures in an EPD begin with a detailed Life Cycle Assessment. Over almost two years, more than 20 colleagues and external specialists from Taiwan and across EMEA/APAC contributed to the work. The process involved operations, R&D, quality, procurement, finance, logistics, product management, sales, sustainability, and independent verification.
Each team contributed a different part of the evidence: production measurements, material specifications, supplier information, energy and water use, waste treatment, packaging, transport routes, product weights and technical assumptions.
Each EPD is also supported by a technical LCA background report. The report for the painted coupling alone runs to 35 pages and approximately 12,700 words. It documents details all the way down to process level energy use and waste information, to product end-of-life routes and the incineration values used for paint, rubber and wooden packaging.
independently verified through Kiwa-Ecobility Experts
The four declarations were externally verified and published through the Kiwa-Ecobility Experts programme. The independent review checks the underlying LCA, calculation methods, data quality, assumptions and EPD content against the applicable standards, including ISO 14025 and EN 15804+A2.
The declarations also carry the ECO EPD Verified mark. Kiwa-Ecobility Experts is an Established ECO EPD Programme Operator and its programme is audited against ECO Platform standards. This supports a more consistent approach to environmental product data across European EPD programmes.
External verification strengthens confidence that the declared information has been prepared according to recognised rules. It verifies the declaration and its underlying methods.
what the four VSH Shurjoint EPDs cover
The release covers VSH Shurjoint painted fittings, galvanized fittings, painted couplings, and galvanized couplings. The assessments include the relevant stages from raw-material supply and manufacturing (A1-A3), transport to the construction site (A4), installation-related packaging treatment (A5), end-of-life treatment (C1-C4), and potential benefits and loads beyond the system boundary (D).
Use-stage modules B1-B7 are declared as not relevant rather than omitted. These fittings and couplings are passive components: under the declared conditions, they use no operational energy or water and require no planned maintenance, repair or replacement during the 50-year reference service life.
Each EPD uses a conservative, worst-case representative article. Results for the other covered sizes are derived by weight-based scaling and made available at product level.
more than 70% recycled scrap metal with a clearly defined scope
One notable material result concerns the ductile iron bodies used in VSH Shurjoint fittings and couplings. The verified LCA records that 77.1% of the external raw-material mix used to produce the ductile iron body is processed scrap metal. Internal production scrap is recirculated within the foundry but is deliberately excluded from this percentage, preventing an inflated recycled-content claim.
In simple terms: VSH Shurjoint ductile iron bodies are produced from a melting mix in which more than 70% of the external raw-material input is recycled scrap metal. The claim applies to the ductile iron body.
The four verified EPDs and product-level environmental data can be viewed through the relevant product sustainability tabs and our EPD downloads section.
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