Background This product-specific facility-specific declaration was created by collecting production data from the facility in Hampshire, IL. All unit processes were modeled using primary data. Secondary data sources include those available in the ecoinvent v3.11 and US-EI 2.2 databases.

Supply chain specificity Per the ACLCA Guidance for Determining EPD Types and Calculating and Communicating Data Specificity Through the Supply Chain v1, this EPD is facility-specific and product-specific with supply-chain-specificity ≥2.13%.

Allocation W. R. MEADOWS facility produces multiple types of products each year. To allocate electricity and natural gas consumption accurately to each product, total annual energy consumption was distributed based on the proportion of each product's annual production (by mass) relative to the total facility production. This approach assigns manufacturing activities proportionally to each product type. All associated manufacturing resources and waste flows were allocated using the same approach. There are no co‐products produced during their manufacturing processes. The model used in the LCA ensures that the sum of the allocated inputs and outputs of a unit process shall be equal to the inputs and outputs of the unit process before allocation. This means that no double counting or omissions of inputs or outputs through allocation is occurring.

Cut-off criteria for the inclusion of mass and energy flows are 1% of renewable primary resource (energy) usage, 1% nonrenewable primary resource (energy) usage, 1% of the total mass input of that unit process, and 1% of environmental impacts. The total of neglected input flows per module does not exceed 5% of energy usage, mass, and environmental impacts. The only exceptions to these criteria are substances with hazardous and toxic properties, which must be listed even when the given process unit is under the cut-off criterion of 1% of the total mass. No known flows are deliberately excluded from this declaration, and no substances considered to be hazardous or toxic according to the Global Harmonized System (GHS) rules for safety data sheets (SDS) are present in the products. Therefore, these criteria have been met. Biogenic carbon is included in reported results.

Quality The precision of the data is considered high. W. R. MEADOWS personnel provided a detailed bill of materials, and facility managers provided utility information for the manufacturing facility. The raw material transportation distances were provided directly by the facility. The data included is considered complete. The LCA model included all known material and energy flows. As pointed out in that section, no known flows above 1% were excluded and the sum of all excluded flows totals less than 5%, whether evaluated by mass, energy, or potential environmental impact. The consistency of the model is considered high. Furthermore, the modeling assumptions were consistent throughout the model, with a preference for the ecoinvent v3.11 database.

Major system boundary exclusions

• Manufacture and transport of packaging not associated with final product
• Construction of major capital equipment
• Maintenance and operation of support equipment
• Human labor and employee transport
• Disposal of final product, except for biogenic carbon balance reporting