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Hexagon Ragasco (Raufoss, Norway), a Hexagon Composites (Alesund, Norway) and manufacturer of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) composite cylinders has been awarded an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) from for the production of its cylinders. Hexagon Regasco’s composite cylinders are produced at the company’s fully automated manufacturing plant in Raufoss, Norway. In the past 21 years, Hexagon Ragasco has sold more than 19 million cylinders in over 85 countries.

An EPD discloses a product’s life cycle environmental impact and helps users to identify sustainable products. Both the underlying life-cycle assessment (LCA) and the EPD are based upon international standards. Furthermore, it contains quantified information that enables comparison between products from the same product category and declares its environmental footprint towards predetermined environmental factors, one being the product’s carbon footprint.

Hexagon Ragasco’s first EPD relates to the production phase of the LCA. In addition to the production phase, the use phase and end-of-life phase will also be analyzed in the future.

Asplan Viak, a leading Norwegian consultancy company specialized in a.o. environmental impact analysis and sustainability, guided Hexagon Ragasco through this EPD certification process for the production phase, which included:

• Production and transportation of raw materials to the manufacturing plant in Raufoss, Norway;
• The production of composite cylinders at Hexagon Ragasco’s manufacturing plant; and
• Transportation of finished composite cylinders from the manufacturing plant to the port of Oslo, Norway.

“This EPD is a big milestone for us, and the result of our dedicated work to reduce our own carbon footprint,” says Margrethe Skattum, head of research and sustainability, Hexagon Ragasco. “We are committed to continuous improvements on sustainability. The knowledge we are gaining through our work with the LCA and EPD gives us the possibility to further improve our cylinders’ carbon footprint in the entire value chain.”