New EPD Feature Allows Subscribers to Easily Privatize Data
This article appears in the Fall 2025 print edition of NAPA Quarterly. Subscribe here.
Emerald Eco-Label empowers account managers to customize access.
Asphalt mix producers who use NAPA’s Emerald Eco-Label (EEL) tool to publish and manage their environmental product declarations (EPDs) now have even more ways to customize who can access that data.
A new EEL feature allows account owners to denote whether published EPD data is available to the public or reserved only for potential customers.
While those who access the list can see how many EPDs a state or organization has published, users can toggle off the ability to click through and see the associated data. By categorizing a particular mix EPD as ‘Private,’ prospective customers can see that there is an EPD on file and ask for more data directly from the company.
Users can also mark published EPDs as ‘Agency Only, which gives only license-holding businesses and entities the ability to see the data. Companies can choose which organizations can access the EPD data from a selection of road ownersstate, county, and local departments of transportation, or for-profit businesses.
EPDs are included in the state and organization totals whether they are marked Private, Agency Only, or Published. Only Unpublished EPDs are exempt from the listing.
DIVISIONS OF DATA
NAPA contracts with WAP Sustainability to manage the program, serving as a third-party reviewer and preventing NAPA staff from interacting with any wholesale data.
This partition in data collection explains why NAPA-led surveys, like the EPD Benchmarking survey that sought info from producers in 2023 and 2024, are conducted separately and independently. Only companies that opted to share data for the Benchmarking effort had their information included in the resulting report.
READY FOR OPTIMIZATION
The new data control features are just the latest of several capabilities to be added to EEL since Version 1 debuted in 2017.
When Version 2 was released in 2022, it included the Optimizer feature, which allows users to input different variables across the EPD data entry system and generate modeled documents to show how changes in factors like burner temperature or hauling distance can affect the ensuing EPD. This ‘sandbox’ feature enables companies to explore alternatives toward more efficient mixes along with energy use and plant efficiency.
Through updates and revisions, the goal of the Emerald Eco-Label program remains to give companies the quantifiable metrics they need to share with road owners to help them meet their goals.