New steel EPD tool cuts environmental data collection from months to minutes

A new digital Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) tool from specialty steel producer Ovako is the first of its kind, cutting the lead time for compiling product-specific EPD data from months to mere minutes. 

Leveraging digital and life-cycle assessment (LCA) expertise from industry partners and third-party verification from Bureau Veritas, the tool launches today and will enable customers to access robust, article-specific environmental data for any steel products they purchase from Ovako. 

EPDs are increasingly important across industrial value chains. Customers are facing growing expectations to understand and document the environmental performance of the materials in their products. Beyond carbon footprint, an EPD communicates a broader set of environmental indicators, including resource use, acidification, eutrophication, water deprivation and waste, assessed across a defined life-cycle scope. 

But producing a verified EPD for a specific steel product has traditionally been slow and resource-intensive. It can require specialist LCA, substantial manual data collection and several months of work before a declaration can be verified and published. This has made it difficult for steel users to obtain product-level data quickly when responding to tenders, reporting requirements or requests from downstream customers. 

Ovako’s pre-verified EPD tool changes that. It aggregates data on a product’s steel grade, production processes, material input, energy, emissions, waste, transport and LCA impact data to automatically calculate EPD results specifically for each unique article delivered to the customer. 

Users can select an article and generate an EPD draft containing environmental data for the product, including Global Warming Potential expressed as kilograms of CO₂ equivalent per ton, broken down across raw materials, transport and production modules. The first version of the tool covers all products made at Ovako’s Hofors, Imatra and Smedjebacken sites. 

The new capability builds on Ovako’s existing Carbon Calculator and gives customers a practical choice of documentation: published general EPDs, article-specific EPD data provided directly in a business-to-business context, or a formally verified and published product-specific EPD where required. 

The tool is pre-verified by Bureau Veritas and approved for use within the International EPD System. A product-specific EPD intended for publication still undergoes an independent, simplified third-party review before publication, helping ensure the declaration meets the relevant standards and requirements. 

The project has been delivered in close collaboration with Astrada, the developer and maintainer of the digital EPD tool; and Miljögiraff, which contributed its LCA and methodological expertise. The platform integrates article-level information with the established calculation logic and enables users to generate article-level results and EPD documents efficiently. 

“Customers increasingly need environmental information for the actual steel product they buy, that is specific, credible and available when decisions are being made — not months later,” said Nicklas Magnusson, Head of Group Sustainability & Safety, Ovako Group. “Our new EPD tool makes that possible. It gives us a scalable way to translate the detailed data behind Ovako’s production into reliable, product-specific information that helps customers meet their own transparency and sustainability requirements.” 

The launch is an important step in Ovako’s long-term work to make product environmental data more accessible, precise and useful. As supply chains face increased demand for credible environmental information, Ovako’s EPD tool will help customers move faster from data to declaration. 

Ovako is a leading producer of clean, high-quality engineering steel for the bearing, transport, and manufacturing industries. Made from 97% recycled material, our steel enables strong and lightweight solutions with a world leading low carbon footprint. With about 2,500 employees and sales of 900 MEUR, Ovako operates in over 30 countries. The company is part of Nippon Steel Corporation, one of the world’s largest steel producers. Our purpose: Together we create steel for a decarbonized society.