Leading pipe manufacturer Pipelife Ireland has gained Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for its Qual-Pex Plus+ ‘Easy Lay’ pipe range – making them the first Irish-made pipes to have independently verified embodied carbon data.

A high-performance, multi-purpose piping system, Qual-Pex Plus+ is engineered for reliable distribution of hot and cold water, central heating, and underfloor heating, designed to last for a building’s whole life – and therefore reduce the building’s whole life carbon impact.

Pipelife’s decision to obtain EPDs for all seven sizes of its Qual-Pex Plus+ pipe range comes as larger developers and public bodies face obligations to calculate and reduce the embodied carbon of buildings – with the rest of the industry set to follow imminently as new EU rules take hold.

'Commitment to supporting developers and public bodies'

Conor Manning, managing director of Pipelife Ireland, said: “Securing EPDs for our entire Qual-Pex Plus+ pipe range reflects our commitment to supporting developers and public bodies as they work to measure and reduce the embodied carbon of buildings. It ensures that Pipelife continues to stand firmly behind our customers as embodied-carbon reporting becomes a compulsory requirement across the industry under new EU directives.”

Irish Green Building Council chief executive Pat Barry congratulated Pipelife, and said: “It is fantastic to see leadership in Irish manufacturers reacting to the imperatives of the EPBD and producing the data that will be needed in the coming years through pro- duction of verified EPD. It is particularly exciting to see data for components used in building services as this is one of the largest data gaps in whole life carbon assessment and we need more manufacturers to provide this data.”

Policy changes such as the EU taxonomy on sustainable economic activities, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the 2024 revision of the EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings are placing pressure on building material manufacturers to produce reliable, independently-validated data on the embodied carbon of their products.

Meanwhile in September the government’s low carbon construction procurement guidelines came into effect – including a requirement to conduct whole life carbon assessments on new buildings above certain budget thresholds, based on a new Life-Cycle Global Warming Potential Calculation Methodology published by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. The requirement also applies to infrastructure projects above certain budget thresholds. 

To enable accurate whole life carbon calculation, product-specific EPDs are the gold standard. The seven Qual-Pex Plus+ EPDs are published on EPD Ireland, a national platform set up by the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) to enable Irish manufacturers to create EPDs for their products and verify them to Product Category Rules (PCR) created for Ireland. These PCRs provide specific, localized rules for various categories of construction products, enabling meaningful comparison between products on the Irish market.

The EPDs were created to EN 14508+A2 based on life cycle assessments by Dutch experts EcoReview Netherlands, and verified by third party verifier Stephen Forson, who was independently appointed by the IGBC from its panel of highly accredited EPD and LCA experts.

Why whole life carbon matters

The whole life carbon emissions of buildings are responsible for almost 40 per cent of global carbon emissions, with 28 per cent coming from operational energy use, and 11 per cent from embodied carbon, according to the World Green Building Council.

Operational carbon emissions are falling due to tightening regulations, the decarbonisation of electricity and fossil fuel boilers being replaced with heat pumps, a cumulative shift which means the emphasis must start to shift to embodied carbon too.

Consequently, embodied carbon has moved from obscurity to centre stage in Irish construction, due to new rules which mandate the calculation of the embodied carbon of buildings – including building services and all other construction materials used.

While the second building services product of any type to be under the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, it will be mandatory to calculate the whole life carbon of all new buildings of 1000 m2 or more by 2028 – and all new buildings by 2030. Data on the embodied carbon of building services is relatively lacking, with some studies suggesting services can represent anything from 10% to 40% of the whole building total.

While Qual-Pex Plus+ is made from polyethylene, a form of plastic, it has a number of environmental advantages over metal pipes. Compared to metal pipes, it offers significantly lower embodied carbon, it is corrosion resistant and comes with a 50-year guarantee.

The Qual-Pex Plus+ EPDs include a 50-year reference service life. Ireland’s whole life carbon calculation methodology sets a reference study period for each building of 50 years – meaning calculations done with Qual-Pex Plus+ will therefore avoid projected emissions from replacement pipes.

What is whole life carbon?

It is all of the greenhouse gas emissions produced by a thing – such as a building – across its entire life cycle. It is made up of embodied carbon and operational carbon. Embodied carbon includes emissions from manufacturing building materials, transport and construction, along with repair, replacement, maintenance and eventual demolition or – preferably – careful deconstruction.

Operational carbon comes from energy and water use during the building’s occupancy. When you put together embodied carbon and operational carbon, you have whole life carbon.