Environmental Data as a Competitive Advantage
Emidat, the Munich-based platform for climate-native product management, hosted the Climate-Native Summit 2026 at the Memox Skyline Tower in Munich. The summit brought together construction product manufacturers, LCA experts, verifiers, and regulatory specialists to tackle one of the industry‘s most pressing challenges: turning life cycle assessments and environmental product declarations from a compliance obligation into a genuine strategic asset.
From obligation to strategy
With the revised Construction Products Regulation and Digital Product Passports set to fundamentally change how products are brought to market across the EU, manufacturers can no longer treat LCAs and EPDs as a one-time formality. The Climate-Native Summit 2026 gave manufacturers a clear picture of what is changing, what it means for their business, and what to do now, before all regulatory requirements come into force.
The day was structured around four themes:
1. Using environmental data as a commercial advantage
2. Scaling LCA production without sacrificing quality
3. Eco-design and the next generation of products
4. The practical implications of the CPR and DPP for manufacturers operating in the EU market.
Block 1: Environmental Data as Business Value
Lisa Oberaigner, Co-Founder and CEO of Emidat, opened the summit by putting the scale of the challenge on the table. Every month, the world builds the equivalent of the entire building mass of New York City. Construction generates 30% of global waste, and 75% of the buildings that will exist in 2050 have not been built yet.
Her message: the manufacturers who move now are building an advantage while the market is still taking shape. Those who wait will be catching up under pressure.
Two case studies followed, each showing what it looks like in practice.
Patric Kannberg, Sustainability Manager at Object Carpet, showed how a clear sustainability ambition, making the next generation of their product better without compromising on performance or design, led them to integrate LCA directly into product development.
The result: 60% recycled content, 40% less material per square metre, 95% less energy in the coating process, and a reuse programme that extends product lifetime. Their advice: use the data as a strategic tool, not a reporting exercise.
Katherine Agapitos, Corporate Product Sustainability Manager at Sika Technology AG, brought the perspective of a manufacturer operating across 103 countries and 400 factories. Sika started publishing EPDs over a decade ago. What looked like early curiosity became a head start that is now very difficult for competitors to close.
Their path: a central competence center, a decentralised specialist network, and a move toward full automation, starting with their Carbon Compass tool in 2025 and EPD automation with Emidat in 2026. Katherine‘s advice: begin with your data. Figure out where it lives, how to connect it, and how to make it reliable. Everything else builds on that.
Block 2: Does LCA Automation Compromise Quality?
Jona Roßmann, Product Manager at Emidat, opened the panel by setting the stakes: 3,000 manufacturers in Europe have EPD data today. Under the CPR, 430,000 will need it. The question is whether automation can deliver the quality the industry needs at that scale.
Three perspectives on stage: Katherine Agapitos bringing the operational reality of a global manufacturer, Niels Jungbluth of ESU-services bringing the verifier‘s view, and Lisa Oberaigner bringing the tool’s perspective.
The panel‘s conclusion: automation does not compromise quality. It improves it. A pre-verified tool used by ten manufacturers in the same product group means thirty or more people stress-testing the same calculation. The methodology gets more scrutiny, not less. Automation also enforces harmonization by design, removing the variability that manual processes introduce.
The harder problem, the panel agreed, is not the calculation methodology. It is input data and comparability. Two EPDs for what looks like the same product can be built on entirely different assumptions, and the difference is not always visible on the final document. The solution is harmonized calculation rules and unified background databases. Until those are in place, EPDs remain a tool for users rather than a simple metric for buyers.
On accountability of the EPD data: shared but clearly partitioned. The tool provider is responsible for the methodology. The manufacturer is responsible for the input data. The verifier checks plausibility. Automation makes that partitioning cleaner, not messier.
The session closed with a live conversation with Christian Donath, Managing Director of ECO Platform, who joined online to react to the panel.
His main reframe: most manufacturers are focused on product-level regulation. The commercial demand is actually coming from the building level. When a developer calculates the environmental performance of a building, they need verified product data for everything that goes into it. No EPD means you are out of the calculation, and out of the project.
On accountability, Christian drew a clear line. The methodology does not change under the CPR. What changes is the governance. Under the law, liability lands directly on manufacturers and notified bodies. In the voluntary market, that accountability is shared. Under the CPR, it is not.
His closing message: 430,000 manufacturers will need to comply and the industry does not have the human capital for it. The capacity problem cannot be solved without automation. Combine human and machine-led verification intelligently, and develop the rules alongside the tools. ECO Platform is writing new verification guidelines for tools right now. Manufacturers who engage now will shape what those rules look like.
Block 3: The Next Generation of Products
Four manufacturers presented products that represent what is possible when LCA data drives development from the start.
Roy Thyroff, Founder of Rothycon and Network Managing Director of CU BAU, presented a cable duct cover for Deutsche Bahn reinforced with non-metallic TecBar composite, manufactured by Klaus Köhler Beton. His argument: the technology works. The bottleneck is the system around it. Approval processes, procurement habits, and the gap between a successful pilot and serial application. Climate impact only happens at scale, and getting there requires redesigning how innovation enters the market.
Anna Sander-Titgemeyer, LCA Expert at Emidat, and Michael Kamml, Research Engineer at FIW Munich, presented research testing wood fibre as a replacement for the fumed silica core in vacuum insulation panels, a material that accounts for over 90% of the panel‘s entire environmental impact. Using LCA at the research stage, before the product goes anywhere near the market, the team validated strong environmental improvements against the silica baseline while mapping the trade-offs that still need to be resolved. The method is the lesson: use LCA as a product development filter, not a reporting tool.
Dr. Stefan Hainer, Head of Application Technology at Dyckerhoff, presented CEM VI, a new cement generation that reduces CO2 by at least 50% compared to standard CEM I by replacing clinker with blast furnace slag and limestone. Dyckerhoff is the first manufacturer in Germany to receive regulatory approval for it. The journey took a decade. The manufacturers who will lead the next wave are the ones already working on it today.
Leon Schweiger, Co-Founder and CEO of Nature Loop Energy, presented LignoDust, a renewable fuel made from regional waste wood that replaces lignite dust in the asphalt burner, the single component responsible for 38% of total CO2 emissions across a road construction project. The CO2 reduction compared to lignite is over 90%. Europe‘s first near CO2-neutral asphalt mixing plant was commissioned in 2023. Baden-Württemberg has already introduced CO2 as a procurement criterion in public tenders, weighted at 30%. More regions are expected to follow.
The block closed with a keynote from Julia Urbauer, Associate Director at Sustainable AG, who gave manufacturers a practical framework for what to do with LCA data once they have it. Product design decisions account for around 70% of a product‘s total carbon footprint. That means the impact is locked in early. The manufacturers getting the most value from their environmental data are the ones integrating it when design decisions are still open, not after the product is finished.
Beyond that, companies with less environmentally harmful products in their portfolios achieve 22 to 33% higher sales compared to competitors. Eco-design is a product strategy argument, not only a sustainability one.
Block 4: The Future of DPPs
Oscar Nieto Sanz, Policy Officer at DG GROW and one of the architects of the CPR, gave the room a direct account of where implementation stands. The new CPR is in force. Implementation happens product by product, tied to when each harmonized standard is adopted. Cement is first. Doors and windows follow, with mandatory application expected around 2030. Most standards are expected around 2031 to 2032.
Key points for manufacturers: you are responsible for creating and maintaining your DPP. The EU Commission provides only the registry. You build the format, declare the data, and carry the liability.
If you already have an EPD, you have done around 80% of the work. Most of the data you need, you already collect. The work is organizing it into a structured digital format. Plant audits are required where primary data is used, but only once, and they can be combined with existing conformity assessment processes. Old declarations must remain accessible for 25 years. National PCRs will be withdrawn and replaced by one harmonized European standard per product category.
His closing message: do not wait until your product enters the system to start thinking about what to do. The earlier, the better.
The panel that followed brought three further perspectives. Ghislain Vathelot, Managing Partner of Accentis CIS, made the case that the DPP is a strategic asset, not a compliance checkbox. The timeline is concrete, the product families in scope are defined, and the CPR is being aligned with the ESPR for a unified European approach. Angela Mejorin, Founder and Curator of Performance-Based Façade Design, pushed the conversation further. LCAs and EPDs are no longer one-time deliverables. Environmental data needs to be live, maintained, and integrated into product strategy. And the DPP, if used well, becomes a tool for traceability, smarter maintenance, circularity, and extending the life of building systems over time. Otto Handle, CEO of Inndata Datentechnik GmbH, closed with the most direct message of the day: the biggest obstacle to DPP readiness is not the regulation, the standards, or the technology. It is waiting for perfect conditions instead of starting now.
