Platform Overview

Smart EPD organizes work through a five-level hierarchy. Each layer constrains the next, from who participates, to what rules apply, to what products are assessed, to the EPD output itself.

Organization

An Organization represents a company or entity on the platform. Every user belongs to exactly one organization, and every action traces back to one. Organizations are assigned a type:

• Manufacturing Group -Produces physical products that need EPDs. A single enterprise may contain multiple manufacturing groups.
• Tool Provider -Develops and maintains LCA/EPD creation software (including Excel-based tools).
• Consultant -Performs LCA work and EPD creation on behalf of manufacturers.
• Verifier -Reviews and certifies specifications, EPD Templates, and EPDs for compliance.

Workspace

A Workspace is a shared collaboration space where two or more organizations work together on EPD-related activities. Think of it as a joint venture room: it defines who is at the table and what role each organization plays.

Each organization has one role per workspace (e.g., Org A is the manufacturer, Org B is the tool provider, Org C is the verifier). An organization can participate in many workspaces simultaneously with different partners.

Workspaces govern membership and permissions; the actual content and rules live in Categories and projects.

Category

A Category is the governed scope of work within a workspace. It defines the rules for a specific product category:

• Which PCRs apply -e.g., Part A / Part B1 / Part B2
• Which tool is used -for tool-based Categories, exactly one tool is registered
• The PCR Specification -the versioned definition of rules and requirements for the category

Categories come in two modes:

	Tool-based Category	Manual Category
Tool	Required: a specific LCA tool is registered	None: external software used
Verification	Tool/model verified at the project level via LCA + template review	Verification happens per-EPD
EPD Template	Full specification chain with semver versioning, resolved per project	No template or very slim
Scalability	Verify once, produce many variant EPDs	Linear: each EPD reviewed individually

The Category is the policy layer: it answers "For this PCR, using this tool, what does a compliant EPD look like?"

Project

A Project is a single product assessment within a Category. It inherits its PCR and tool from the parent Category, and this is where the specification chain resolves into a concrete EPD Template with locked fields, unlocked fields, and validation constraints. The project defines:

• The specific product type, family, and line being assessed
• The team (individual users drawn from workspace member organizations)
• The EPD Template (resolved from the specification chain, verified by the verifier), including any input constraints required for variant EPDs
• One or more EPDs for that product

Projects are the day-to-day working unit. They can be duplicated within the same Category for similar products.

EPD (Environmental Product Declaration)

The EPD is the deliverable: a standardized document declaring the environmental impact of a product. Smart EPD supports two distinct approaches depending on whether the Category is manual or tool-based.

Traditional workflow (manual Categories)

In a manual Category, LCA practitioners use external software and submit each EPD individually for verifier review:

Every EPD is individually reviewed by a verifier. This approach is appropriate for one-off assessments or low-volume product lines.

Reference & variant workflow (tool-based Categories)

In a tool-based Category, the verifier certifies the tool once at the Category level, and then once per LCA/EPD template at the project level. This unlocks scalable EPD production with two distinct EPD types:

Reference EPD -Produced during project verification to setup subsequent variant EPDs with compliant output. It is a verification artifact, not a production document.

Variant EPD -The actual production EPD created by manufacturers for specific products. Because the tool, template, and constraints have been pre-verified, variant EPDs do not require individual verifier review; they pass through automated validation against the approved template.

This is the core efficiency gain of tool-based verification: verify once at the Category and Project levels, then produce many compliant variant EPDs without per-EPD review overhead.

Comparing the two approaches

	Traditional (Manual Category)	Reference & Variant (Tool-Based Category)
Verification target	Each individual EPD	The tool + EPD Template (once per Category)
Verifier involvement	Reviews every EPD	Reviews tool & reference EPD(s); variants auto-validated
Scalability	Linear: cost grows with each EPD	High: verify once, produce many
EPD types	Standard EPDs only	Reference EPDs (verification) + Variant EPDs (production)
Best for	One-off assessments, low volume	High-volume product lines, tool providers, automated pipelines

What's next

• Terminology -Full glossary of platform concepts including specifications, templates, and constraint types
• EPD Templating -How templates enforce value ranges and validation constraints