How to Quickly Find the Right Glazing EPDs for Your Submittals (and Why It Sets You Apart)

Architects are asking for more than shop drawings and performance data. Today’s glazing submittals often include EPDs, HPDs, VOC data, and “good faith effort” language—especially on public and higher‑education work like SUNY, CUNY, state university systems, and large healthcare owners.

For glaziers, that can either be:

• A painful scramble to track down documents from multiple sources, or
• A chance to look buttoned‑up and easy to work with.

When you’re using Viracon, you have a big advantage: a full, searchable EPD library that aligns with specific glass types, coatings, and configurations—something most regional fabricators can’t match.

This guide walks you through:

1. Where to find Viracon EPDs in seconds
2. Which EPDs typically go with which Viracon products
3. How to talk about the difference vs. smaller regional fabricators

1. Where to Find Viracon EPDs

All of Viracon’s Environmental Product Declarations live in one place:

Viracon Library – Technical → Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)
https://viracon.com/viracon-library/#technical

Scroll to the “Technical Library” section and look for the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) list. You’ll see a series of EPD titles such as:

• Viracon EPD 562 – 9/16th Sightline
• Viracon EPD 563 – 13/16th Sightline
• Viracon EPD 566 – Low Iron
• Viracon EPD 568 – Spandrel
• Viracon EPD 571 – 23/32 VTS Airspace
• Viracon EPD 574 – Laminated
• Viracon EPD 576 – Basic
  …and others.

Every document is a Product-Specific Type III EPD, third‑party reviewed to the standards architects care about (ISO 14025, ISO 14044, ISO 21930). That’s exactly what many specs now call out by name.

2. Matching Common Viracon Products to the Right EPDs

You don’t need to be a sustainability consultant to choose the right EPD; you just need to know which families line up with which EPD IDs.

Below is a simplified map you can use on most commercial work.

a. Low‑Iron & Mid‑Iron Viracon IGUs (VNE, VRE, VNG families)

If your Viracon submittal includes:

• Low‑iron or mid‑iron clear IGUs (e.g., VNE24‑63, VNE35‑63, similar VNE/VRE/VNG families), and
• Standard insulating glass makeups (1" IGU with argon, low‑E on surface #2)

Use:

• Viracon EPD 566 – Low Iron
  Good for: Viracon low‑iron / mid‑iron IGUs across typical low‑E offerings.

Often, reviewers will also accept:

• Viracon EPD 576 – Basic
  Use as a general baseline Viracon IGU EPD, especially where they just want proof that Viracon glass has Type III coverage.

b. Spandrel IGUs with Viraspan

If your package includes spandrel glass from Viracon:

• Example: Mid‑iron outboard lite + airspace + inboard lite with Viraspan ceramic enamel.

Use:

• Viracon EPD 568 – Spandrel
  Good for: Viracon spandrel IGUs with ceramic enamel on the inboard lite.

c. VTS® Warm‑Edge Spacer

If you are using or proposing:

• Viracon Thermal Spacer (VTS®) as the warm-edge spacer, with argon-filled IGUs.

Use:

• Viracon EPD 571 – 23/32 VTS Airspace
  Good for: IGUs using VTS, to show the EPD for that specific spacer/airspace configuration.

This is particularly useful on projects where the architect or owner:

• Wants to see the difference vs. a metal spacer, or
• Is tracking embodied carbon down to the spacer/airspace level.

d. Laminated Glass from Viracon

When Viracon is providing laminated glass (not third‑party fire ceramics):

Use:

• Viracon EPD 574 – Laminated
  Good for: Viracon laminated glass used in doors, guardrails, or interior partitions where lamination is part of the Viracon scope.

e. Specialty Coatings or Processes

If your spec or shop drawings include:

• Silk-screened Viracon glass
• DigitalDistinctions® printed glass
• RoomSide® Low‑E

You can pull:

• Viracon EPD 569 – Silk-Screened
• Viracon EPD 570 – DigitalDistinctions
• Viracon EPD 573 – RoomSide Low‑E

Most jobs won’t need all of these—but when you do, having them ready in one package makes your submittal look premium.

3. How to Package Viracon EPDs in a Submittal

Here’s a simple way to present EPDs to an architect or university reviewer.

Step 1 – Create a small table in your submittal:

Example:

Step 2 – Attach the PDFs from Viracon:

Download directly from:
https://viracon.com/viracon-library/#technical → Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)

Step 3 – Call out the Type III status once:

In your cover letter or email, include one simple line:

“All included Viracon EPDs are Product-Specific Type III (third-party reviewed), compliant with ISO 14025, ISO 14044, and ISO 21930.”

That phrase alone answers a lot of spec language about EO22, LEED v4/v4.1, or campus sustainability standards.

4. Why This Is Different From Regional Fabricators

Most regional glass fabricators face real limits when it comes to EPDs:

• They might have no EPDs at all, or only a generic float glass EPD from a base glass manufacturer.
• If they do have something, it’s often not product-specific:
  • One generic declaration for “IGU” that doesn’t distinguish low‑iron, spandrel, laminated, or specialty coatings.
• It’s rare for a smaller fabricator to have:
  • Separate EPDs for low‑iron, spandrel, laminated, VTS, RoomSide, and specialty processes.
  • A public, searchable library where architects and consultants can check documents themselves.

In practice, that means:

• You spend more time chasing documents or explaining what isn’t available.
• Specs that call for Type III EPDs by product often require “good faith effort” letters, not actual documents.
• On public/university projects, the design team may push back or downgrade those alternates on the sustainability side.

With Viracon, you can show:

• Depth and transparency: multiple EPDs mapped to specific products.
• Consistency: the same manufacturer that’s doing your performance work is also publishing detailed environmental data.
• Credibility in the room: when an architect or consultant asks, “Do you have an EPD for that glass?”, the answer is a simple “Yes, here it is”—not an apology.

That’s a clear difference when you’re competing against a regional fabricator who can only say “we don’t have that, but we’ll write a letter.”

5. How to Use This Advantage in Conversation

When you’re in front of an architect, consultant, or owner, you don’t have to give a sustainability lecture. A few simple lines are enough:

• “With Viracon, we can give you product-specific Type III EPDs for the actual glass families you’re specifying, not just a generic float EPD.”
• “If you want to track environmental impact at the spandrel or warm‑edge spacer level, Viracon already has those EPDs published.”
• “Compared to most regional fabricators, Viracon’s documentation makes your LEED and EO22 paperwork much easier.”

That’s usually all they need to hear to understand why your submittal is stronger.