Good afternoon. Welcome to PCI's webinar series. Today's presentation is Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Product Declarations. My name is Royce Covington, Member Services Manager at PCI, and I'll be your moderator for this session. Before I turn the controls over to your presenters for today, I have a few introductory items to note. Earlier today we sent a reminder email to all registered attendees that included a handout of today's presentation. The handout for this webinar can be found in the handout section of your webinar toolbox pane. If you cannot download the handout, please email PCI Marketing at marketing at pci.org as shown on your screen. Note that all attendee lines are muted. The GoToWebinar toolbox has an area for you to raise your hand. If you raise your hand, you will receive a private chat message from me. If you have a question, please type it into the questions pane where I will be keeping track of them to read during the Q&A period. Also, a pop-up survey will appear after the webinar ends. Today's presentation will be recorded and uploaded to the PCI eLearning Center. Questions related to specific products or publications will be addressed at the end of the presentation. PCI is a registered provider of AIA CES, but today's presentation does not contain content that has been endorsed by AIA. Today's presentation is non-CEU. Our presenters for today are James Salazar, Sustainability Director at WAP Sustainability Consulting, and Hannah Renaud, Sustainability Analyst at WAP Sustainability Consulting. I'll now hand the controls over so that we can begin our presentation. So hopefully everyone can see my screen. Yeah, looks like you can. Perfect. So yeah, thanks for that. Like I said, my name is James Salazar. I'm Sustainability Director here at WAP. I'm here to talk about life cycle assessments and environmental product declarations, somewhat generally, but really specifically around a proposed project that we're trying to gather momentum and participation in for to work with PCI to meet the growing needs for this sort of information in the marketplace. My colleague Hannah will be giving a live demonstration of some of the data collection requirements that we have for this type of project towards the end of this, but for my part I do want to kind of reintroduce the project, which I imagine you've heard quite a bit about, especially if you were in Denver last week. I know it was brought up quite a bit. So I'd like to just kind of give you some of the highlights of the project and why we're doing it, but also go through the LCA and EPD kind of process and what it means to create an industry-wide EPD for an industry like this. And then we'll go through kind of where we are in the overall scheme of things with getting a project put together. I do want to talk really, I guess, flexibly around some of the timelines. We have had to shift this somewhat. I believe if some of you have seen me talk about this late last year or even going back to the summer, some of those timelines have obviously been shifted, but we have, you know, I think we're getting really close to my understanding of having real critical mass and be able to move forward and get this project accomplished. So, you know, one thing, you know, I don't think I've probably talked about enough, if you've ever heard me kind of go through these, you know, presentations, is that, you know, why we're doing this. You know, buy clean legislation is popping up all over North America. This is a somewhat dated map, but I think it kind of shows, you know, where things are headed. You know, obviously, if you're on the West Coast, you've already seen some of this, particularly in California, Oregon, Washington. Those of you in Colorado, I'm sure, are also quite familiar. But, you know, the real game-changer in this happened last year, which was, you know, federal government went in big-time on buy clean. So this is the, you know, just a current map of the projects under the GSA that now require EPDs for material submission. So I'm hoping it's clear enough that you can kind of see the number of little dots, but it's literally all over the country. I think there's 40-something states, so they're represented in these projects. So and what we're seeing is, you know, with this kind of leadership, if you will, or, you know, kind of normalizing EPDs, we're seeing a lot of the, you know, real acceleration in the state and local level of requiring the same sort of information. So definitely the need is growing, you know, which brings us to this project and the need to update some of these data that we have for the industry. Sorry if it's loud. I've got a little bit of noise here. Those of, you know, those of you that have seen these presentations, this is probably not new to you, you know, some of the acronyms we use, but it is a bit of an alphabet soup and for the uninitiated it can be a little daunting when we talk about things like life cycle assessment. Life cycle assessment being kind of the underlying science of looking at products across their life cycle. Things like product category rules. Product category rules are the specific kind of LCA modeling rules that we need to undertake to develop an EPD. It's essentially what makes an EPD comparable. So if you're looking at one EPD from a given producer relative to another, that there's enough, you know, there's recognition that those were completed following the same rules and under the same, you know, requirements. And then finally, you know, what this all leads to is an EPD. So really what an EPD is is a summary of LCA research that was conducted under a given product category rule. So that, you know, essentially the PCR dictates what parts of the life cycle, what, you know, what processes and what materials are included or excluded. But generally speaking, life cycle assessment is really an assessment of the life cycle of product. Not to sound obvious, but, you know, it's a way of looking at the materials and energy that flow into and out of the system. Going back to the cradle, which is something that, you know, other analysis don't really look at. So looking actually at the raw material production, the transportation of the materials to producers, delivery of those materials then to a construction site, which may or may not be included in the scope of an EPD. We'll talk about that in a second. And then, you know, carrying through to the life, you know, the service life and eventual end of life of a product. But what we're seeing is for construction materials like concrete, really the focus is on cradle-to-gate. Now for the cradle-to-gate of a precast product, that includes reinforcement, not just the concrete materials, but also the reinforcement and the actual casting of the product. Whereas, let's say for other materials, there's, you know, additional processes and things that need to happen at the construction site. You know, so what it requires is under a given PCR, there's, you know, very strict not to be comparing against, let's say, cradle-to-gate for another product. Because cradle-to-gate can mean very different things. But, you know, suffice it to say that cradle-to-gate is kind of the unit of information that manufacturers are expected to be able to, you know, reconcile with their product to be able to put out a declaration that covers, you know, the parts of the supply chain that they have access to. And this is, you know, how the current EPDs are. There are existing EPDs for the precast industry. They're somewhat dated now. They're actually expiring this year. So they're definitely in need of an update. And definitely, you know, with this update, you know, through discussions with PCI, the intention is to be much more deliberate about creating averages and representative products that kind of reflect the new reality that, you know, these things are being used as baselines. They're being used as benchmarks for things like buy claim. So making sure that, you know, industry benchmarks are coming from the industry and not, let's say, someone else's interpretation of what the data should be for the industry. So definitely, you know, the more you participate and the more PCI kind of owns this process, there's definitely, you know, it definitely improves the data quality and the ability for the, you know, the individual members that are facing the buy claim requirements. And then, you know, to do this, there is a PCR currently for precast concrete. We do expect this to evolve somewhat over the next few years. I'm currently sitting on the ReadyMix Concrete PCR committee and I can tell you that, you know, with that one, there's now currently several members of, let's say, GSA and EPA that are now in Federal Highways that are now participating in the kind of standards process. So definitely, things are ramping up towards the attention of the rules and the development of the rules at the product level and also at the international level. You know, all construction products follow a common set of rules called ISO 21930 and I think definitely with, you know, the growth and the buy claim and the more teeth the legislation has, the more focus is paid to these rules that have evolved over time. So like I mentioned at the beginning, you know, we're really kind of early in this process. I have us, you know, in a typical workflow here at the kind of kickoff phase, but I would say actually we're kind of at a, you know, a little bit before that even, where we're actually still working to get folks like yourselves enrolled into the study so that we can then begin collecting the data and then going through our modeling processes, eventually drafting our LCA reports. And then, you know, from those LCA reports, we actually would develop the EPDs in collaboration with PCI because those, you know, as the kind of examples I showed you previously, and if you're familiar with those, they have a little bit of branding in it, you know, it is an opportunity for the industry to put their best foot forward when they're, you know, declaring their environmental information publicly. And like all EPDs, these will need to go through a third-party review. So this, you know, working with standards organizations, groups like ASTM, NSF, UL, that have historically done these kind of verifications for the concrete industry. You'll see here, like I said earlier, a very conservative and I would say kind of rough estimation of a timeline. It's a little bit different in the handout, I think. I was kind of reviewing this right before the meeting. But essentially, you know, we're still in this enrollment phase and we would, you know, realistically speaking, we know that with the kind of scale of the project we have in mind that we need to give, you know, kind of lots of leeway on the data collection. Now as you'll see from a second from Hannah, for an individual company to participate in this, we estimate it probably takes about one person day all in for a given plant to gather all the different information. But we are realistic with kind of having run a bunch of these kind of industry-wide studies that we need to, you know, give some time for you to, you know, resources to become available to be able to actually gather the data. So once we actually do that, and there's no reason, you know, that you can't start working with us right now, you know, if you want to get ahead of the study, you know, we're anticipating, you know, several months for that. But this to give you an idea, you know, that once we kind of get through this data collection, there's probably two, three month window for us to, let's say, document all the data that we have, to develop the reports, and then to go through this third-party verification, which there's always a little bit of a lead time on that. So I want to keep the expectations realistic that, you know, if we are able to get going on data now and wrap it up, let's say, by early fall, that we can expect to have EPDs by the end of 2024, which, you know, as I mentioned, the others EPDs we have are currently set to expire. So I think it's, you know, imperative that we kind of keep this process going and the momentum going on this project to meet these timelines. So I will stop showing my screen now so that my colleague Hannah can do that and give you a better sense, like I said, of the data collection. Awesome. Thank you, James, and thank you, PCI, for having us today. It's great to see so many people online. If you currently work with us already, you're going to be very familiar with this system and the data collection process, so I apologize if it's duplicate information, but you may be getting something out of this that you haven't heard before or seen before. This is our Theta tool. It is a cloud-based system, so what that means is that there's nothing you have to download in the background, nothing you have to download to your systems. It's all here on a web-based format. With that, you'll be getting your own login, so you'll get your email address and then a password set up so you can log in directly to your own site where you continue data collection for your own plants, put in your own information, and then finally you can spit out your own EPDs for your product-specific products if you wish to do so. So here is what it looks like for the homepage. We are just using a demo site at the moment, but for you it would have your company information there at the top and then all of your information that you gather and you put into the system will be implemented into here so you can view at any time. When you go into the system, we're going to be asking for the number of plants to start off with, whether that's one, two, or five or more, you hit continue there. You can see we'll then ask for your plant name, address, city, and the state you're located in. This is for EPD purposes. Please do fill that in that information as that's going to be needed to kick-start your data collection process for the rest of the tool. If you have different divisions within your own company, you can add those at the top and then add in your plant name as you go on. That's not needed, but it's there if you have that information on hand. You'll hit save there at the bottom, then you'll go in and view your plants in the plant system that looks like this. Over on the left-hand side, you can see the division, if there was one, the plant name, any assigned users, and then city and state your plant is located in. Next, we're going to move over to the precast concrete facility and surveys. On the left-hand side, you can see the empty surveys for each of the plants that are in our system. You'll go through, you'll select one, and hit continue, and then this will be the empty survey that you see for each of those. To start off, we're going to be asking for 12 months worth of data. For previous year, that would be 2023 for you guys. Please do fill it in. You can change this to whatever you need if you're doing a fiscal year, but we really need the most up-to-date information for this precast study. We'll ask for your total precast production for one whole year. On the right-hand side, you're able to change the units to whatever is applicable to you and your billing and your information you have on hand. We'll ask you to fill in your structural, architectural, insulated, etc. products there on the left-hand side. You can fill those out. We really do need your total precast production, so make sure you fill out that information first, and then you can break it out into products after that. Next, we'll ask for your purchase energy. This includes electricities, things like your purchase electricity from a green grid, any on-site generated renewable energy, solar, wind, wood waste, anything like that. We'll be asking for your natural gas usage, any secondary fuels, fuel oil, diesel, gasoline, propane, any of those used at your plant site. Again, on the right-hand side, you're able to change the units to whatever is on your billing. We'll move into annual plant consumables, so this does include your form release agents, road dust chemicals, oils, lubricants, and greases if used, your total water usage, and then any batch water that's recycled wash water. We have that percentage available to you as well to include. We have next your waste generated, so this includes your hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste, and then finally your air emissions and water emissions, if those are tracked. Please do fill in that information and do this to the best of your abilities. We understand that some info on here that you guys may not have on hand, and it may not be accessible to you, which is understandable. Just do your best you can, fill in to the best of your knowledge, and then hit completed there at the bottom once you're finished. I will note not showing on this screen, but there is threshold built into the background, so if you have information that's higher or lower than what we typically see, it will be flagged. That doesn't necessarily mean that your information is wrong, it's just that it's above or below what we have built into the tool. If that's the case, we will view it, we'll look at it, we'll ask you if that information is correct. Typically it's okay, sometimes there's a fat finger issue or you go in and you choose the wrong units. That is okay, we'll make sure to view that before we move forward with the industry-wide study. The next portion of the tool will ask you to fill out is a supplier directory. You can see this one here is already built out for us. When you go into the tool, it will be empty, so you will have to start from scratch, but what we're really asking for is your overall suppliers that are used at all of your plants. If you use a supplier at multiple different plants, you only have to enter it in once at one time. Once it's entered, it's in there for good. You can see it's an alphabeticalized list, so once you add one, it will go in the correct order. The left-hand side is where you add the new supplier. The top will ask for the name of supplier, we'll ask for the material type or the category. You have admixtures, aggregate, cement, other, and SCM. We'll then ask for the country and the address associated to that supplier. That supplier's address is from the manufacturing center of the material, not the terminal or the distribution center. We do have to go all the way upstream for that, so please make note of that. It is from the manufacturing center, not the terminal. Next, we'll ask you to specify the ingredients for a supplier. This is just noting which materials come from which supplier you have in the list. For instance, if it was an air and trainer supplier, we'll go through and add air and trainer from this big list we have here. The majority, if not all, of the materials that you guys are going to use. If there is not something in this list that you guys use in your products, please do let us know. We may be able to find a data set for that and include it in this list for other people to use as well. Finally, if you have a typo or you need to rename something, if you renamed it wrong for your naming conventions, you have the ability to do so right here in the left-hand side where it says update supplier name. You'll select the supplier from the top drop-down section and then edit the name that is needed in the bottom section and hit update. I do want to note that the tool is built out so you're not able to delete any suppliers. That is due to using any suppliers in a mixed design or product design that has been published. If that supplier has been used in a published EPD, you're no longer able to delete it. That's why you do not see a delete section in this portion of the tool. If you do need to remove something when you're going out and filling this out to begin with, please just do send a note to my email. It's hannah at WPSustainability.com. We'll be able to figure that out and remove it for you, but just note that it's not something you'll be able to do on your own. Also in this list not shown is the product-specific EPDs that are out there on the market. If any of your suppliers have those, we'll be linking those in the background for you so your data is getting a little bit more up-to-date rather than just using the averages that are built into the tool. We have an extensive directory in the background of our tool that houses all of these EPDs, so if that's the case, we'll just go through your list when we're doing our QC checks and make sure to link them for you. Finally, for the data collection process, we're going to be asking for your distances. What that means is we're going to be asking for your one-way distances from the manufacturing center of your materials to your plants. This can be via truck, rail, ocean, or barge, or a mixture of any of those four. What you'll see is plant-specific. For each of your plants in the system, you'll go through and add in the distances for your suppliers. You only have to do this once. Once it's in the system, like the supplier directory, it's in there for good. On the left-hand side, you'll select a material type that is seen in the previous step in the supplier directory, and then we'll grab the supplier for that specific material. Next, you'll see the amounts of measure there, annual amount purchased per year. It's in metric tons, so you can include that. It is optional for you. Finally, you'll put in the distances. Again, you can change the units to whatever is applicable to you. You'll put in truck, rail, ocean, or barge and hit save there at the bottom. Then, that goes up to this table here, where you can see it all laid out. In the table, you can see the name, the type of material, and then if it comes via truck, rail, ocean, or barge. Once that data has all been entered, we do a QC check of that information, and all of that will be locked down in order to send it to verification if you're doing product-specific EPDs. If you're just doing the industry-wide, it will not be locked down, and we'll be able to view that information, but if you're doing product-specific, it does all have to be locked in order to go through verification and then make your final product-specific EPDs. Next, we're going to move over to the product entry, or what we're calling mix entry on this page. You'll go to mix entry here, you'll see a list that looks like this, and you'll pull down the drop-down. You'll select your plant there at the top, you'll enter in your product name, a description, and then compressive strength units for that specific product. Under the next one is where you'll grab your product you just entered, there'll be a drop-down list of all the ones that are in the system. They will be empty to start out with, you can see this one is all built out just for the purpose of this call today. To enter in a mix ingredient or mix material, you go add mix ingredient there at the top of the table. You'll select one from the drop-down list, if we're doing, say, glass fiber, we'll enter in an amount, you can change the units again, and then click add there. You'll see it all add into the bottom of this table here, and then once you're ready, you can go ahead and view your impact summary. You're able to edit and delete these materials as needed, so we're going to go ahead and delete that one we just added. You can see the impact summary table is ready to view there. On the left-hand side of this, you have the impacts, so global warming potential, ozone depletion, acidification, eutrophication, and so on. The top six indicators that people tend to look at are viewable to you here on this page. We do have an extensive list of all those impacts on the actual EPDs if you choose to go to the product-specific route. You then have the units for each of those. You have the results. The results are in per metric ton, according to the product category rule that James went through earlier on. It's the rules that we have to follow as consultants to build out your LCA and your EPDs. We then have it built out into A1, A2, and A3. Your A1 is all your raw materials being entered up above. Your A2 is your transportation distances entered in the previous step, and then your A3 is all your manufacturing entered in the step before that. Now you have the ability to recalculate your impacts here if you've edited or deleted something above. You just hit that button there. You can see the recalculate there on the bottom. If you're going to product-specific route, there is another button here beside this, which is the download EPD button. If you're creating those EPDs for yourself, you're able to click that button and get a draft document to your computer. You'll receive that in a PDF in your browser. You'll be able to view that. If you're ready to publish it and send it off to your customers, there will be a third button shown here. Just because this one's not a verified plant, you're unable to view that button there. But it's a published EPD to program operator, and that means that the program operator that you went with for verification, you'll be able to view your EPDs on their website. You'll also be able to view your EPDs on the EC3 or Building Transparency website. It's basically another repository for all EPDs in the market. That is available to you free of charge. It goes to both places when you hit that button. A couple other things that I wanted to make note of is the edit mix function here. If you needed to edit the product name or description or compressive strength units, if you've entered them wrong or just need to redo them, you have the ability to do so right here in this screen here. What you'll do is grab your plant, you'll grab your mix design, your product design, and then change whatever you need to change there and hit save. You also have the ability to clone your product design, so instead of starting from scratch each time entering in your data, you're able to grab a product that's already completed with all that information. You can change your product name, your description, and compressive strength units, and then be able to clone all that material that's already being populated in the previous one to this one here. And then you'll be able to start from scratch. You will not be able to start from scratch, you'll be able to grab different material types or different quantities instead of starting from scratch from the beginning, so that is available to you as well. I'm going to jump to James there to make sure I didn't forget anything, but that is the tool here. If you have any questions, please write it in the chat, we'll be able to go through those. Sure. The only thing I did want to just point out is that we're showing you here, it's a GFRC example, but under the materials, there's a whole range of different materials, so just because we showed you that one, rest assured that there are things like rebar, wire mesh, and anchors and things that are within the materials, material options here. Hannah can basically show the complete list. So yeah, you can see rebar and things like that. So that was the only thing I just wanted to point out, and definitely the distinction too that in working with us, there's really, we see the need for individual companies to be producing product-specific EPDs. There is potentially an option where you could just basically go up to the point of creating your own EPDs and provide us data for this industry-wide study, but I think for right now, honestly, we're very close to having enough that are just kind of committing to going all the way to the end, but producing EPDs, product-specific EPDs. So to that end, the entire little presentation that Hannah just gave I'm sure will be relevant as you kind of go down the path of developing your own products and modifying those and editing those and then eventually uploading that data into the various repositories where EPDs live. So that, I think, concludes mine and Hannah's part of the presentation, and we're happy to answer any questions. I don't think I saw any in the Q&A thing, unless I'm not reading that correctly. We do have a couple of questions. Okay, perfect. I'd like to thank you and Hannah for your great and informative presentation. So now we're going to get started for the Q&A portion. The first question is, is the distance that we enter from source of raw material to our plant supposed to be the direct distance, i.e., the way the crow flies, or the distance it travels in the typical route that it would be taken? Just the latter, particularly for things like overseas shipment of materials. Those we definitely try our best to use realistic shipping routes and things like that, because that can vary quite a bit. We recommend on transportation, and I'm sure rail distances are potentially harder to find, but certainly on anything road, we use Google Maps. And if you have, obviously, something more specific than that, a specific routing, then that's always preferred. All right. Thank you. The next question is, can you explain why is compressive strength needed? So this is actually, as you can imagine, a common user interface that we use with ReadyMix Concrete, in which, in ReadyMix Concrete, there is a requirement to put compressive strength. So it's really just an optional data field that it's not, for our precast products, it actually doesn't show up on the EPD. All right. The next question is, what is the shortest timeline for the entire process of product-specific EPDs can be completed? Sure. Well, we're used to this question. A lot of what we get is, unfortunately, as the RFP comes, and when you're looking at a matter of a few weeks, it's too little, but certainly within two months, I would say, this is the probably absolute shortest we can do it, and that would give us, essentially, if you have your data pretty much ready to go, there's a week, two-week, essentially, lead time for you to put your data in, for us to do our quality control checks, and then to hand it off to the verifiers for the EPDs. Now, in all honesty, there is a little bit of a bottleneck with them, so we've been allotting up to six weeks. But I would say, as things kind of move forward, we're expecting things to get back into the month or less kind of norm for review, so in that case, potentially as quick as four to six weeks. Okay. This next question is a two-part question. The first part is, if there are multiple suppliers for material, such as rebar, how do you specify a certain supplier for the mixed portion of the program? The second part is, do we just assume a certain supplier for simplicity, or does it take an average of the suppliers? Well, I think the last point that kind of, in my mind, is how I would answer the first question, which is, if you are able, and definitely the trend in EPDs is towards supply chain specific as much as you can, that allows us, as the kind of EPDs evolve and come on board for particular things like cement, but I think very soon things like steel products as well, it allows us to then actually model the, not just the specific transportation distance, but the actual specific data from that facility. Now, we do recognize that that's not always possible, and there is the possibility, in that case, of doing some averaging. If you wanted to represent, let's say, a couple of suppliers, and essentially it's not necessarily clear at the time the product's being developed which of those two or three suppliers that material came from. So, I would say, we've definitely designed the software to be specific, but if we need to put in, let's say, a specific average and have an average supplier, I think that's not a problem. We can definitely, on questions like that, feel free to reach out to Hannah or myself, but that's a good question. Awesome. Awesome. The next question is, is there a place for entering finishing materials such as abrasive blasting? Not currently, but that is, I have to say, we've done quite a bit of LCA research around precast products over the years, so having previously worked with the Athena Institute on some of the earlier versions of this, but this is really the first time that we've been developing producer-specific and product-specific EPDs. So, we have some understanding of what materials and processes we need to have in our databases, but definitely for things like that, please let us or myself or Hannah know if there's anything that's not in that. We have some catch-alls under other, but as you kind of move towards, and that works, let's say, for our data collection for the industry-wide study, but as soon as you start using those in products, we will have to kind of get more information and flesh out some of those. So, that's, yeah, if that's a relevant example, we're really interested to hear more of those too, honestly. Okay. Our next question is, as a PCI-certified plant, how do we get involved in the data collection process? I would recommend that you either reach out to myself or Hannah directly, or else to Jared Brewey, and I imagine a lot of you guys have Jared's email address, but mine and Hannah's will also be made available to you. Excellent. This is, two people have asked this question, can you show us a published EPD to get a feel for the viewable content, the publicly viewable content? I'm not sure if we have one on deck, but definitely in the follow-up to this, we can make sure that everybody has access to one. There are really only a few producers that have publicly created their own EPDs. So I don't have one at my fingertips, but definitely we can make sure you get a copy of one to see what they're, what they look like. Perfect. Next question is, what is the difference if we use ready-mix concrete versus having our own batch plant? Well, I think you have, you know, the function, functionally speaking, you know, we're really interested are the specific materials. So, you know, I'd imagine that if you have your own batch, you know, your own mixing plant, you have probably more accessibility to the vendors and things like that. But you know, it's not to say that we can't work with, let's say, combined operations. You know, definitely reach out to us. We'd be happy to put together a solution for that. And we are kind of thinking about different ways that our software may be used in the concrete industry. And we're thinking things like contractors and pavers and things that, you know, where there's a ready-mix component combined with other processes and materials. So in those cases, feel free to reach out. But yeah, definitely, we can make that work. Thank you. The next question is, is there a spreadsheet import option for suppliers? There's not, I would say, an automated one, but definitely, if you're down the path of collecting data via spreadsheet, possibly, let's say, the ones we've used in previous versions of this study in years past, you know, we don't want, you know, we don't want that to be a bottleneck between kind of your data getting into the study and getting into the software. So definitely reach out to us, and we'll see what we can do with the spreadsheet. And if you, honestly, if you prefer a spreadsheet, you know, we've kind of, we find benefit in having, let's say, a common login, that you're not having to bounce files all around that kind of, you can actually, I'm not sure if Hannah mentioned this, but you can actually create additional user accounts and assign them different tasks, things like filling up surveys for a particular plant. So but that said, if there is a desire for offline data collection, reach out. We don't want any impediments between kind of your data getting up and running. All right. The next question is, how many plants have currently signed up for the WAP-EPD industry average data collection? Oh, I don't know if I have a current number, but it was north of 50, possibly even more than that. And, you know, our goal was probably in the 100 range, but realistically, I think we're getting really close to critical mass, probably 75 or so, which is what we kind of consider a minimum sample. But, yeah, I think we're getting really close and, yeah, I'd say we're more than halfway there and kind of need we're, I think the idea is that this kind of this webinar and some of the other announcements and, you know, around the WAP-EPD study will allow us to kind of get over the hump. All right. Next question is, are forms for casting products counted for the WAP-EPD? I'm not sure that's a good question that, you know, any of this kind of questions about that, it's good to go through with Jared. So, I would, you know, like I said, feel free to reach out to myself and hang out. But yeah, we can have anything around the margins where there's a question. Let's reach out because we are working, you know, we are kind of doing two things. We're working with individual companies to get set up with their own EPDs and on the data collection and all that, but we are really working hand-in-hand with PCI and kind of the overall design of the study, of the industry-wide study and the benchmarks that are going to come out of that. So, feel free to reach out to myself or Jared and we can work through that. Okay. This next question is also another two-part question. It says, for us to contribute data for the industry-wide EPD, do we need to publish our data to those previously mentioned repositories or is inputting our data into the Theta tool sufficient for contributing to the industry-wide EPD? Yeah, if, you know, those other databases and things like, let's say, EC3 and these repositories where EPDs are, you know, that's just essentially if you want to be, if you want to have your own individual EPDs that are public, you know, because that's the repository, I believe, that GSA uses, for example. But if all you're interested in is participating in the industry-wide study, you know, we can definitely limit, you know, we have our own data confidentiality, you know, it's part of our software user license and so there's definitely, if you don't go all the way forward with EPDs, then that would only, yeah, that would only be contained within the, you know, industry-wide averages for this study. Okay. I'm going to see if I can read this next question. It says, admixtures, high water range reducer, water reducer, high range. There's no question mark to it, so I'm not exactly sure the question that they're asking. Well, you know, with all the materials it is, there's a range of different types of admixtures and, you know, I think we have some kind of categories and things, but, you know, there is, let's say for admixtures, there's always, you know, some specific things that don't necessarily fall into those categories. We have some, another admixture field where you put that in, but, yeah, certainly any of the admixtures they're using. Okay. The next question, what happens if this isn't completed before the current EPD expiration? Well, there's, you know, there's a few things that can happen. You know, the question will become, you know, who's using it and, you know, what are they using it for, and in the absence of any other types of EPDs, you really kind of, you know, once it hits expiration, you're kind of at the mercy of, let's say, the recipient and if they're willing to, you know, accept that. And there is a possibility of, I'm not sure how realistic it is of an extension, but, you know, our goal right now, because that is a very kind of dated, and it's right at the end of its lifetime anyway, and the fact that things have changed a lot in the last five years, honestly, around EPDs and what makes kind of a good EPD and representative EPD for the industry. So I think our focus is definitely on getting, you know, getting the data in, getting this new updated benchmarks and, you know, EPD published, more so than, let's say, thinking about extending or, you know, making use of the existing EPD. But that said, you know, we can work, if it comes to fruition, we'll do what we can to not leave anyone hanging in the meantime. All right. It looks like that's all the questions we have. We'll wait a couple seconds more to see if someone else is going to submit any more questions. And to all attendees, our presenters will be given this list of questions with contact information as well. Perfect. Well, it looks like that's all the questions we have on behalf of PCI. I'd like to thank you and Hannah both for your great presentation. If our attendees have any further questions about today's webinar, please email marketing at pci.org. Thank you again. Have a great day and please stay safe.

Life Cycle Assessment

Environmental Product Declarations

EPDs

Buy Clean Legislation

Construction Industry

Cradle-to-Gate Analysis

Theta Data Collection Tool

Industry-wide EPD Study