Sustainability tools: from ESG to automated EPDs

In the midst of the ecological transition, companies must first be able to measure their environmental impact before they can reduce it. This need has given rise to a series of specialized digital tools designed to transform raw company and product data into environmental performance indicators that comply with relevant standards. These results then become standardized information – often certified or at least third-party verified – essential for engaging with costumers, investors and regulators, as well as for marketing and communication purposes.

Understanding these digital tools is the first step toward reducing the internal effort required to produce corporate and product-level sustainability data and reports. For this reason, it’s helpful to start with an overview: in this article, we will first explore the broader category of “sustainability tools” and then move on to examine more specific solutions.

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1. What are sustainability tools?
2. What are the main functions of a sustainability tool?
3. Focus: Environmental Product Declaration
4. The traditional certification process for EPDs
5. The EPD Ecosystem: the role of Program Operator (PO)
6. The EPD Tool as an innovative solution
7. How does an EPD Tool work?
8. The advantages of an EPD Tool
9. Conclusions

A sustainability tool is a digital instrument belonging to a broad category of software and methodologies designed to support companies in generating environmental performance data and reports – data that then serve as the foundation for reducing their environmental and social impact.

Their main function is to help measure, analyze, optimize and communicate the sustainability performance of a product, a service or an entire organization. In practice, they act as true digital allies in the ecological transition.

These tools perform several essential functions for any company looking to integrate sustainability into its strategy. For example:

ESG performance measurement (Environment, Social, Governance): they allow organizations to systematically assess their impact across three areas – environmental (e.g., energy consumption and emissions), social (e.g., workers’rights, inclusion) and governance (e.g., corporate transparency).

Reporting support: they simplify the collection and organization of the data needed to prepare key corporate documents such as the sustainability report, a crucial tool for communicating with stakeholders and complying with current regulations.

Emission calculations: they can calculate greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., Scope 1 and 2 according to the GHG Protocol) directly form a company’s energy consumption data, providing the corresponding carbon footprint indicator.

These functions are among the most common examples related to the environmental and social performance of an organization. However, it’s important to note that more advanced tools also support in-depth data analysis and the development of improvement strategise, such as decarbonization plans.

Within this broad category, there are also tool specialized in product-related sustainability, designed to meet very specific needs – such as generating Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for individual products.

The EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) is a certification that serves as a true “environmental ID card” for a product. But what makes it so valuable?

First, it is based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), the scientific method that calculates a product’s environmental impact at every stage of its life – from cradle to grave. Second, it provides objective, transparent and comparable data, since all EPDs within the same product category must follow the same Product Category Rules (PCR), ensuring a fair comparison. Third, EPDs are recognized and valued by the Minimum Environmental Criteria (CAM), which identify them as a verification tool for specific requirements in green public procurement, thereby facilitating access to public tenders and contracts. Finally, the EPD is also a key communication tool for all stakeholders: customers, suppliers, investors, public authorities and end consumers

Obtaining an EPD certification is a rigorous process, which can involve a significant investment of time and money. For example, for a company with a large product catalog, having to repeat the entire process for each individual product variant creates a major bottleneck in terms of both time and costs.

The steps – identifying the PCRs, conducting the LCA, drafting the declaration, third-party verification and registration with a Program Operator – are already demanding when done once, but become prohibitive when multiplied across dozens or hundreds of production. It is precisely to address these challenges and unlock  the potential of large-scale certification that EPD Tools were developed.

Program Operators (PO) are the organizations that manage EPD certification programs, playing a key role in guaranteeing and overseeing the entire system. It is essential to understand that an EPD Tool does not operate in isolation: for an EPD to be valid, it must strictly follow the rules and PCRs defined by the relevant Program Operator, ensuring that its EPDs are officially recognized.

Their main responsibilities include:

• Rule definition: they develop and manage the Product Category Rules (PCRs), documents that standardize the LCA methodology, ensuring that results are comparable across EPDs for similar products.
• Registration and publication: after third-party verification, the PO registers and publishes the EPDs on its official platforms, making them accessible to everyone and granting them formal validity
• Process management: they oversee the entire certification process, defining the regulations and recognizing the accredited verification bodies authorized to operate.

The EPD Tool belongs to a specific and crucial subset of sustainability tools. It is software designed primarily to simplify and automate the generation of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). Its key advantage is that it allows companies to quickly and automatically calculate the environmental performance values of a specific product, while accessing an accelerated verification and publication process – without having to redo the entire LCA analysis for each individual product variant.

To ensure that the certifications generated are objective, reliable and verifiable, an EPD tool must follow a very precise process:

1. Preliminary certification: before it can be used, the underlying LCA model and the software’s calculation algorithms must be verified and certified by an independent third-party organization and finally registered with an EPD Program Operator. This step ensures that the calculation logic is correct and compliant with the standards. Once verifies, neither the tool nor its LCA model can be modified. This strict rule is essential to guarantee that all subsequent EPDs generated are valid and trustworthy.
2. Automated calculation: with a certified tool, the company-supported by the tool owner or a consultant-can input the variables related to its specific products for which it wants to generate an EPD (for example, different components or sizes). The tool then automatically calculates the environmental impacts, producing an EPD report for each product.
3. EPD verification: the verification and publication of the EPD generated by the tool follow a faster path for both verification and publication, as they are produced using an already validated algorithm.

Adopting such a powerful tool provides tangible and measurable benefits for companies.

Integrating an EPD Tool into business processes is not just a technical choice, but a strategic decision with cascading benefits. These tools operate within a well-defined and regulated ecosystem, ensured by the presence of Program Operators.

• Operational efficiency: automation drastically reduces the time and costs associated with manually certifying many products, freeing valuable resources.
• Improved information management: it provides a centralized and organized archive of all certifications, simplifying the management, updating and traceability of environmental data.
• Greater transparency: it ensures more accurate and consistent data, strengthening brand trust among customers and business partners who are increasingly attentive to these issues.
• Simplifies compliance: an automated process reduces the risk of errors and non-compliance with international standards, ensuring that all declarations are correct.
• Competitive positioning: the ability to quickly certify a large product catalog offers a decisive advantage, facilitating access to a new markets and tenders that require compliance with Minimum Environmental Criteria (CAM) and Green Procurement practices.
• Decision-making support: the data analysis provided by the tool helps identify the areas of greatest environmental impact within products, supporting strategic decisions for optimization and eco-design.

The EPD Tool is much more than just software for streamlining a process. Building on the broader concept of “sustainability tools”, it serves as a perfect case study of how a specialized digital tool can transform sustainability form a compliance burden into a strategic lever. It enables companies-even those with complex product catalogs-to measure and communicate the environmental performance of their products efficiently, transparently and credibly.

Adopting an EPD Tool therefore means equipping your business with a true strategic accelerator, capable of generating tangible competitive advantage in today’s market.