With a new full-service offering, the SKZ Plastics Center makes the preparation of Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) and Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) significantly easier and faster. Companies benefit from the experts’ extensive experience, reduced internal workload, and pre-verified tools—while ensuring compliance with relevant standards and high data quality.

The new SKZ offering significantly simplifies and speeds up the creation of LCAs and EPDs. (Photo: AI-generated)

The Würzburg Plastics Institute conducts complex environmental assessments and reduces the burden on companies as sustainability requirements increase

Transparent and reliable environmental information is indispensable for many products today—especially in the construction and automotive sectors—and is often even required by law. Verified life cycle assessments (LCA) and environmental product declarations (EPD) have become the standard in this regard.

The high effort involved is holding many companies back
However, preparing LCAs and EPDs is a demanding process: it takes time, is complex, and can be expensive. Additionally, it requires in-depth expertise in life cycle assessment and the use of specialized software and databases. For this reason, many companies outsource these tasks to external service providers.

SKZ Makes Sustainability Documentation More Accessible
Drawing on its experience from over 100 successfully verified LCAs and EPDs, SKZ has now developed a comprehensive, hassle-free service. The goal is to significantly reduce the burden on companies while delivering high-quality results. This makes the organization’s existing expertise available to a broad user base.

The experts at SKZ handle the majority of the work. Proven methods and established tools ensure that the effort required on the company’s part remains minimal. At the same time, they enable an efficient and rapid process—even when creating multiple LCAs or EPDs for different products or entire product groups.

Less Effort, More Speed: Clear Benefits for Companies
Companies benefit directly from having the complexity of LCA and EPD preparation largely taken off their hands, as key process steps are managed by the SKZ. The necessary information is provided via simple, practical interfaces, which significantly reduces the internal workload.

The use of pre-verified tools further accelerates the entire process. A deliberately streamlined approach saves time and resources, helping companies meet market demands more quickly and secure competitive advantages. Upon request, the SKZ also offers long-term support to ensure that future LCAs and EPDs are implemented efficiently and in a structured manner.

Particularly relevant for small and medium-sized enterprises
“LCAs and EPDs pose significant challenges, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. Thanks to our extensive experience, we can greatly simplify and accelerate the preparation of these documents for these companies,” explains Dr. Jan Werner, Group Leader for Sustainable and Circular Products at SKZ.

Compliant with standards and future-proof
In addition to proven methods for data collection, modeling, and analysis, SKZ specifically relies on pre-verified tools. These enable the particularly time- and cost-efficient creation of additional EPDs. At the same time, full compliance with relevant standards such as EN 15804 and ISO 14040/44 is ensured. The result is rapid verification and publication of the Environmental Product Declarations.

Further information on the Sustainable and Circular Products Research Group