Life Cycle Assessments 

Owens Corning is committed to making transparent the total Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of all core products by 2015.  More than 30 product LCAs have been completed over the past seven years including; fiberglass insulation, Foamular® Rigid foam insulation, EnergyComplete™, Advantex® composite glass and non-woven mats. Performing LCAs on many of our core products has identified and allowed improvements in processes that maximize their positive environmental impacts. Each assessment examines all stages of the product's life, starting with the extraction of resources for raw material inputs, continuing through processing, manufacturing and product use and ending with disposal or recycling.

Leadership 
Owens Corning was instrumental in bringing together a coalition of the insulation industry to produce Product Category Rules (PCR) as the basis for Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) leading to Environmental Product Declarations (EPD). The PCR for insulation products was issued November of 2011. Data collection and modeling are now underway to develop LCA’s for insulation products.

Owens Corning co-chaired the committee that provided industry life cycle inventory information to the American Composites Manufacturing Association (ACMA) at the February 2012 conference.

Environmental Product Declarations

Buyers are increasingly demanding to know the full extent of a product's environmental impact. From raw material extraction, production and packaging to distribution, end use and disposal, transparency into the impacts of a product at each stage of its lifecycle has become a critical driver of purchases and specifications. Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) that are certified enable manufacturers to make those disclosures in a credible, streamlined and universally understood manner.   

Owens Corning now has Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for our EcoTouch^® Kraft Faced and Unfaced batts and rolls and for all brands of Unbonded Loosefill (EcoTouch^® and AttiCat^®) for products produced in the US and Canada.    

• The EPDs are certified by UL Environment.      
• EPDs are being sought by green building programs, and contribute to meeting a pilot credit in LEED.
• OC’s  EPDs are the beginning of meeting our 2015 Sustainability of Products Goal to make transparent the total life cycle assessment of all core products.

To see the two-page Transparency Briefs look to the right hand side Document Library.  The full Environmental Product Declarations can be found at  Sustainability Literature

 Customer Reach 
In 2011, to help our composite customers address product sustainability and compete effectively against other material systems, we performed multiple assessments for several composite applications, such as glass fiber-reinforced cement. Owens Corning customers value the life cycle information they get as it provides them data to provide transparency in their products. Entire life cycle assessments have been performed as a service to our customers beyond just providing life cycle information.
 
We have also participated in a multi-product, multi-manufacturer life cycle assessment sponsored by the North American Insulation Manufacturers.