CASE STUDY: COMTEC
Enhancing competitive advantage with EPDs for complex construction systems

Project Scope

Cascade delivered EPDs as part of an EPD Programme for:

AlphaRiser
WallBeam

The aim was to create practical, commercially valuable EPDs capable of reflecting the flexibility and variability inherent within Comtec’s product range.

About COMTEC

Comtec is a UK manufacturer specialising in Integrated Riser Management® Systems for the construction sector. In 2025, the company partnered with Cascade to develop Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for two of its core systems — AlphaRiser and WallBeam — in response to growing client demand for transparent environmental data.

The project required a highly tailored approach due to the complexity of both the products themselves and their associated supply chains.

The Challenge

One of the key challenges was the sheer level of variation within the AlphaRiser system.

The product could be manufactured in multiple sizes, thicknesses, and material configurations. Certain elements of the product scaled proportionally, while others remained fixed regardless of size. For example, the dimensions of the riser could increase significantly, but the number of screws used within the assembly remained constant. Variations in grating perforations and opening sizes also affected the environmental profile of the product.

Alongside product complexity, the supply chain introduced further variability. The same product could be manufactured at two separate UK production facilities, each with different transport distances and logistics impacts. In addition, AlphaRiser and WallBeam required different declared units, creating another layer of technical complexity within the lifecycle assessment process.

All of these variables needed to be accurately represented within a streamlined and usable EPD structure.

A Bespoke Consultancy-Led Approach

To address these challenges, Cascade carried out a detailed consultancy and discovery phase to fully understand Comtec’s products, manufacturing arrangements, and customer requirements.

The objective was not simply to produce compliant EPDs, but to create declarations that were:

Accurate and technically robust
Adaptable to future product variations
Practical for both Comtec and end users to interpret

This consultancy-led process allowed us to design a bespoke methodology tailored specifically to Comtec’s operational realities.

Developing an Averaged EPD Model

For AlphaRiser, Cascade developed an averaged EPD capable of representing twenty potential product size variations within a single declaration.

To achieve this, we produced six separate lifecycle assessment (LCA) models:

Three models for each UK manufacturing site
Covering best-case, medium-case, and worst-case carbon scenarios

This approach enabled us to capture the full range of environmental impacts associated with varying product dimensions, material quantities, and manufacturing locations.

We then developed a non-linear scaling methodology that allows users of the EPD to identify environmental impacts for the exact AlphaRiser configuration being specified, rather than relying on a simplified average value alone.

For WallBeam, Cascade produced a dedicated LCA model and EPD aligned to its own declared unit and manufacturing profile.

The Outcome

The completed EPDs provided Comtec with independently verified environmental data for two of its flagship systems while accommodating the complexity of highly variable products and supply chains.

Since publication, Comtec has reported that EPD availability has helped strengthen its competitive position and support contract wins, particularly where environmental transparency and embodied carbon data are increasingly prioritised by clients and specifiers.