Reclaimed Brick Company has announced a ground breaking achievement for the UK reuse and salvage sector: the company has published a third-party verified Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for its reclaimed bricks, the first of its kind for a UK reclaimed-brick supplier.
View EPD Here
The EPD, prepared under globally recognised standards, provides transparent, verified data on the environmental impacts of reclaimed bricks across their lifecycle from recovery and processing to delivery and end-of-life. The declaration sets a new benchmark for recyclers and reuse suppliers, and strengthens the case for reclaimed materials in sustainable and low-carbon construction.
What is an EPD and why this matters?
An EPD is a Type III environmental declaration, based on a full Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and provides objective, standardised data on the environmental impacts of a product across its lifecycle: from raw material recovery to manufacture, transport, installation, use and final disposal or reuse.
EPDs help architects, engineers, specifiers, developers and clients to compare materials on the basis of environmental performance a crucial capability for projects targeting sustainability benchmarks such as low-carbon, circular economy or green-building certification.
For the reclamation and reuse sector, an EPD represents transparency, traceability and credibility it demonstrates that a reclaimed product’s environmental footprint has been formally calculated and independently verified, rather than claimed, in line with international standards.
In short: the EPD transforms reclaimed bricks from a “good-will sustainable choice” to a robust, data-driven option within environmentally conscious design, procurement and regulatory frameworks.
Key findings from the Reclaimed Brick Company’s EPD
The published EPD for Reclaimed Brick Company’s bricks (from their Sheffield depot) is prepared in accordance with EN 15804 + A2 and ISO 14025, under the EPD Hub programme.
Highlights include:
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Declared unit: 1 metric tonne (1 ,000 kg) of reclaimed clay bricks delivered to site (net of packaging and transport)
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Global Warming Potential (GWP-fossil) for cradle-to-gate (modules A1–A3): 20.4 kg CO₂e per tonne.
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On a “total GWP” basis, the result is –3.18 kg CO₂e per tonne. This negative figure arises because the bricks are considered 100% secondary material, with zero upstream burden allocated for the original brick manufacture.
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Secondary material content: 100% — the bricks are entirely reclaimed clay, no virgin inputs.
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Recycled output potential: The EPD assumes that 70% of material mass remains reusable or recyclable at end-of-life.
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Energy use (A1–A3): 138 kWh per tonne (covering collection, cleaning/preparation, packaging, handling, sorting and transport within the facility).
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Service life: The EPD applies a reference service life of 150 years — reflecting typical long-term performance of brick masonry.
Taken together, these figures demonstrate that reclaimed bricks deliver a dramatically lower life-cycle carbon footprint than new bricks particularly when you consider that the original manufacturing burden is excluded, and that the bricks are reused, avoiding both new production and demolition waste.
Why this EPD is a milestone for reclamation and circular construction?
1. Data-driven credibility over good-intent environmental claims. Where many sustainability claims remain marketing statements, a verified EPD provides hard, standardised data. This shifts discussions from “this is more sustainable because it’s reused” to “this has quantifiable embodied-carbon savings”. That distinction is increasingly important for architects, engineers, specifiers or clients working under carbon-reduction regulations, net-zero targets, or certification systems (e.g. BREEAM, LEED).
2. Support for Whole-Building Life Cycle Assessment (WBLCA) EPDs provide the core data inputs for WBLCA — enabling reclaimed bricks to compete directly with new bricks (or alternative materials) on carbon, energy, waste and end-of-life performance criteria.
3. Recognition for reuse as a mainstream construction material. Historically, reclaimed materials have been treated as niche or “heritage-only” options. A full EPD helps shift that perception — proving that reclaimed bricks can not only match the performance of new bricks, but also deliver clear environmental advantages.
4. Encouraging circularity and waste reduction because the EPD assumes reclaimed bricks are 100% secondary material — and anticipates high reuse/recycle rates at end-of-life — it explicitly acknowledges bricks as circular resources, not waste. That helps normalise reuse and reclamation within mainstream supply chains.
5. Providing a benchmark for others in the industry. By leading the way, Reclaimed Brick Company sets a precedent for other salvage businesses, brick manufacturers, and specifiers encouraging more EPDs and greater transparency across the built environment.
What specifiers, heritage professionals and clients should consider
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Use the EPD for project-level carbon accounting: When specifying bricks for renovation, retrofit, or new-build, reclaimed brick with a verified EPD can substantially reduce embodied-carbon calculations especially when compared with new clay or concrete bricks that carry full manufacturing burdens.
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Combine with reuse and salvage best practice: Use reclaimed bricks within well-considered designs that respect existing mortar, masonry detailing and moisture movement that way you leverage both sustainability and longevity.
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Advocate for transparency across materials: As more reclaimed and new product manufacturers publish EPDs, opportunities grow for truly comparative assessments of environmental impact across entire buildings not just single products.
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Recognise potential limitations: While EPDs provide robust cradle-to-gate and end-of-life data, they don’t guarantee that the bricks are structurally or aesthetically suitable for every application. Physical compatibility, workmanship, heritage significance and moisture/durability performance still need careful attention.
What this means for the future of reuse and salvage
As the construction industry grapples with embodied-carbon reduction, waste minimisation, and circular economy principles, transparency and traceability are becoming as important as performance and price. The publication of a verified EPD for reclaimed bricks by Reclaimed Brick Company represents a vital step: it institutionalises reuse, giving it a seat at the table with conventional building materials.
In practical terms, this move helps reposition reclaimed brick as a mainstream material rather than a niche heritage option. For architects, conservation specialists, developers, and clients, it provides the data they need to make informed, responsible, and low-carbon material choices — whether restoring a Victorian terrace, building a low-impact new home, or designing commercial premises with sustainability credentials.
Ultimately, the EPD helps shift the narrative: reclaimed bricks are no longer just “old bricks reused for sentiment or aesthetics” they are environmentally quantified, verified, high-quality building materials.
As more reuse suppliers follow suit, and as regulatory frameworks and certification schemes increasingly demand life-cycle data, we may soon see verified reclaimed bricks become a default option in sustainable building — not a special case.
For the UK’s salvage and reuse sector, this is a landmark moment.
