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Environmental information
Environmental information is data related to construction products and building projects concerning their environmental impacts, resource use, and sustainability characteristics throughout their entire life cycle. It is often based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), but may also include other information such as material origin, energy efficiency, recyclability, and emission classifications.
Environmental information is used in building design, procurement processes, environmental certifications, and decision-making to help select solutions that are as environmentally sustainable as possible.
The LVI-INFO database provides fields for entering the required environmental information. If no environmental assessment has been carried out for a product, the closest corresponding conservative calculation value from the co2data.fi emissions database is used instead.
Explanations of key terms related to environmental information:
Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)
An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a standardized and verified report describing the environmental impacts of a product or service. It provides information such as:
how much energy is consumed in the production of the product
what emissions and waste are generated
various environmental indicators, of which GWP is one of the most important
the product’s carbon footprint over its entire life cycle.
PEP
A Product Environmental Profile (PEP) is an environmental declaration similar to an EPD, but it is primarily used for electrical and electronic products. A PEP is as widely recognised across industry programmes as an EPD.
GWP number
The GWP value (Global Warming Potential) indicates how much a greenhouse gas contributes to global warming compared to carbon dioxide (CO₂) over a specified time, typically 100 years. GWP is used, among other things, to convert emissions of different gases into a common unit, CO₂ equivalents.
Requirements of the Finnish Building Act from 1 January 2026 onwards
The new Finnish Building Act entered into force in Finland on 1 January 2025, but the carbon footprint calculation for buildings and the building permit in data model format entered into force in January 2026.
The Building Act combats climate change, promotes the circular economy, streamlines construction and supports the digitalisation of the built environment. From the perspective of LVI-INFO’s customers, the most essential point is that the Building Act requires a climate declaration for buildings, based on environmental data for construction products, including GWP values.
The climate declaration will be required for new buildings that apply for a building permit in 2026 or later. The regulation applies to almost all new buildings, excluding, for example, detached houses. The climate declaration reports the carbon footprint and carbon handprint of the building’s entire life cycle.
What does this mean for LVI-INFO’s customers?
- CO2 emission values must be added to products, for example values calculated based on an EPD/PEP, or generic values from the CO2data.fi database.
- It is important to add all available information to the environmental data, such as the registration number of the environmental declaration and the expiry date of the environmental declaration.