About Michelmersh Brick Holdings PLC

Michelmersh Brick Holdings PLC manufactures and supplies premium clay bricks and related products for architectural and construction projects across the UK. For many years, Michelmersh used industry-average Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) produced through the Brick Development Association. However, increasing client demand for more detailed and manufacturer-specific environmental data led Michelmersh to pursue its own manufacturer-specific EPD programme.

In 2025, Michelmersh partnered with Cascade to develop a suite of UK-specific EPDs capable of accurately representing the environmental impacts of its manufacturing operations.

The Challenge

Michelmersh initially explored a software-led approach to EPD development. However, the complexity of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) modelling — particularly around manufacturing process direct emissions and background data quality — created challenges that required a consultancy-led process.

A major objective of the project was to create EPDs that accurately reflected UK manufacturing conditions rather than relying on standard European datasets from background databases that did not fully represent Michelmersh’s operational reality.

One of the most technical aspects of the project involved modelling process direct emissions associated with brick manufacturing, particularly kiln operations and fuel consumption. Various process direct emissions occur at different stages of the firing process that have to be accurately represented and balanced within the model (inputs must balance with outputs). 

The project also required factory-level allocation, meaning environmental impacts had to be accurately distributed across total annual production volumes at each manufacturing site.

Advanced LCA modelling & UK-specific data refinement

To develop robust and representative EPDs, Cascade completed twelve detailed lifecycle assessments (LCAs) across the four manufacturing sites.

For each EPD, we modelled:

• Best-case environmental impact
• Production weighted average environmental impact
• Worst-case environmental impact

This approach allowed Michelmersh to understand the potential variation in environmental performance across operational scenarios while ensuring the published EPDs remained both accurate and commercially meaningful.

As mentioned, a significant part of the consultancy involved overcoming limitations within background datasets.

For example, emissions factors associated with natural gas consumption used European-average values that were not representative of UK energy conditions. Cascade unpacked and refined these datasets to align with UK-specific operational and emissions factors before rebuilding them into the final LCA models.

This process created a far more accurate representation of Michelmersh’s actual manufacturing impacts.

The Outcome

Michelmersh successfully published four UK-specific EPDs representing its manufacturing sites and operational conditions. 

The project enabled Michelmersh to provide clients, specifiers, and contractors with independently verified product environmental data aligned to its own UK production operations.

If you need an LCA or EPD but aren’t sure where to start, or don’t have time to manage the process, we can help with that.

We typically work with:

• Construction product manufacturers
• Materials and component suppliers
• Companies responding to tenders or sustainability requirements
• Teams needing support with Life Cycle Assessment
• Suppliers needing EPDs for project specifications
• Companies targeting schemes like BREEAM
• Companies seeking to develop in-house EPD capabilities
• Companies who have faced challenges with EPD software

If you’ve been asked for an EPD, or know you’ll need one soon, Cascade ensures it gets done properly.

Contact us