Increased chemical use is causing a growing number of environmental problems and chemical products are pervasive in societies within animal and crop-based agriculture, in industrial processes and in ...households. National environmental targets, as well as the global chemical-related goals in the 2030 Agenda, call for the monitoring of chemical use and emissions. The growing international trade of goods, where use and regulation of chemical inputs vary highly between countries, complicates measurements. This paper addresses these issues by deriving a set of indicators on chemical use and emissions and connect the global impacts to a country's total consumption, here using the case of Sweden. The indicators are based on a hybrid model combining the multi-regional input-output analysis database EXIOBASE with data from the Swedish System of Economic and Environmental Accounts together with a novel set of environmental extensions. A review of databases is conducted and discussed in relation to the driver-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) framework for indicators. Five indicators are calculated, showing the chemical use and emissions connected to consumption, both within a country and abroad. The indicators are: use of hazardous chemical products, use of pesticides, use of antimicrobial veterinary medicines, emissions of hazardous substances, and of the potential toxicity of these emissions. The results show that the impact of Swedish consumption in terms of use and emissions of hazardous substances is largely taking place outside the Swedish borders. Only 10–24% of the pressure from Swedish consumption is shown to occur within Sweden's borders, depending on the indicator. The use of hazardous chemical products and veterinary medicines related to Swedish consumption primarily takes place in other EU countries, whereas the use of pesticides as well as reported emissions of pollutants occur mainly in countries outside the EU. The results highlight the need for improved international accounting of chemical flows, as well as for strengthened policy frameworks to address cross-border impacts of consumption of hazardous chemical products.
Providing our society with goods and services contributes to a wide range of environmental impacts. Waste generation, emissions and the consumption of resources occur at many stages in a product's ...life cycle—from raw material extraction, energy acquisition, production and manufacturing, use, reuse, recycling, through to ultimate disposal. These all contribute to impacts such as climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, photooxidant formation (smog), eutrophication, acidification, toxicological stress on human health and ecosystems, the depletion of resources and noise—among others. The need exists to address these product-related contributions more holistically and in an integrated manner, providing complimentary insights to those of regulatory/process-oriented methodologies. A previous article (Part 1, Rebitzer et al., 2004) outlined how to define and model a product's life cycle in current practice, as well as the methods and tools that are available for compiling the associated waste, emissions and resource consumption data into a life cycle inventory. This article highlights how practitioners and researchers from many domains have come together to provide indicators for the different impacts attributable to products in the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) phase of life cycle assessment (LCA).
•Approach for use of scenarios dealing with both waste management and energy issues.•Overall scenarios for the common project and sub-scenarios in parts of the project.•Combining different types of ...scenarios to the tools of different disciplines.•Use of explorative external scenarios based on marginals for consequential LCA.
Development and use of scenarios for large interdisciplinary projects is a complicated task. This article provides practical examples of how it has been carried out in two projects addressing waste management and energy issues respectively. Based on experiences from the two projects, recommendations are made for an approach concerning development of scenarios in projects dealing with both waste management and energy issues. Recommendations are given to develop and use overall scenarios for the project and leave room for sub-scenarios in parts of the project. Combining different types of scenarios is recommended, too, in order to adapt to the methods and tools of different disciplines, such as developing predictive scenarios with general equilibrium tools and analysing explorative scenarios with energy system analysis tools. Furthermore, as marginals identified in differing future background systems determine the outcomes of consequential life cycle assessments (LCAs), it is considered advisable to develop and use explorative external scenarios based on possible marginals as a framework for consequential LCAs. This approach is illustrated using an on-going Danish research project.
There is a great need for indicators to monitor the use and potential impacts of hazardous chemicals. Today there is a huge lack of data, methods and results and method development and studies should ...be given urgent priority. The aim of this paper was to develop and test an approach to calculate the potential environmental impacts of chemicals for a whole country using the E-PRTR (European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register) as a database and Sweden as an example. Swedish data from 2008 on emissions to air and water for 54 substances from point sources were retrieved from an open database. The data were transformed and aggregated using USEtox, a life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) method for calculating potential human toxicity and ecotoxicity, both from industrial emissions directly and after input–output analysis (IO analysis) to reallocate emissions to product categories. Zinc to air and water contributed most to human toxicity followed by mercury to air. The largest contribution by industry to potential human toxicity came from the metal industry, followed by the paper and paper product industry. For potential ecotoxicity, zinc, fluoranthene and copper contributed the most. The largest contributions by industry came from the paper and paper products manufacturing sector, followed by the basic metals manufacturing sector. The approach used here can be seen as the first step towards a chemical footprint for nations. By adding data from other countries and other sources, a more complete picture can be gained in line with other footprint calculations. Furthermore, diffuse emissions from, for example, transport or emissions of pesticides could also be added for a more holistic assessment. Since the area of chemicals is complicated, it is probably necessary to develop and use several indicators that complement each other. It is suggested that the approach outlined here could be useful in developing a method for establishing a national chemical footprint.
•European Pollutant and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) used to develop indicators•Study combined emissions to air and water from E-PRTR with USEtox and IO analysis•Metals and especially zinc contributed most to potential human toxicity and ecotoxicity•Paper and metal industries contribute most to potential human toxicity and ecotoxicity•This new assessment could be used by many countries and can be developed further.
The potential and limitations of life cycle assessment and environmental systems analysis tools in general are evaluated. More specifically this is done by exploring the limits of what can be shown ...by LCA and other tools. This is done from several perspectives. First, experiences from current LCAs and methodology discussions are used including a discussion on the type of impacts typically included, quality of inventory data, methodological choices in relation to time aspects, allocation, characterisation and weighting methods and uncertainties in describing the real world. Second, conclusions from the theory of science are practised. It is concluded that it can in general not be shown that one product is environmentally preferable to another one, even if this happens to be the case. This conclusion has important policy implications. If policy changes require that it must be shown that one product is more (or less) environmentally preferable before any action can be taken, then it is likely that no action is ever going to take place. If we want changes to be made, decisions must be taken on a less rigid basis. It is expected that in this decision making process, LCA can be a useful input. Since it is the only tool that can be used for product comparisons over the whole life cycle, it can not be replaced by any other tool and should be used. Increased harmonisation of LCA methodology may increase the acceptability of chosen methods and increase the usefulness of the tool.
Integrated Waste Management is one of the holistic approaches to environmental and resource management which are emerging from applying the concept of sustainable development. Assessment of waste ...management options requires application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This paper summarizes the methodology for applying LCA to Integrated Waste Management of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) developed for and now used by the UK Environment Agency, including recent developments in international fora. Particular attention is devoted to system definition leading to rational and clear compilation of the Life Cycle Inventory, with appropriate 'credit' for recovering materials and/or energy from the waste. LCA of waste management is best seen as a way of structuring information to help decision processes.
Recent developments in Life Cycle Assessment Finnveden, Göran; Hauschild, Michael Z.; Ekvall, Tomas ...
Journal of environmental management,
10/2009, Letnik:
91, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Life Cycle Assessment is a tool to assess the environmental impacts and resources used throughout a product's life cycle, i.e., from raw material acquisition, via production and use phases, to waste ...management. The methodological development in LCA has been strong, and LCA is broadly applied in practice. The aim of this paper is to provide a review of recent developments of LCA methods. The focus is on some areas where there has been an intense methodological development during the last years. We also highlight some of the emerging issues. In relation to the Goal and Scope definition we especially discuss the distinction between attributional and consequential LCA. For the Inventory Analysis, this distinction is relevant when discussing system boundaries, data collection, and allocation. Also highlighted are developments concerning databases and Input–Output and hybrid LCA. In the sections on Life Cycle Impact Assessment we discuss the characteristics of the modelling as well as some recent developments for specific impact categories and weighting. In relation to the Interpretation the focus is on uncertainty analysis. Finally, we discuss recent developments in relation to some of the strengths and weaknesses of LCA.
Most Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) research and applications have so far neglected the ex post stages of the process, also called SEA follow-up. Tool kits and methodological frameworks for ...engaging effectively with SEA follow-up have been conspicuously missing. In particular, little has so far been learned from the much more mature evaluation literature although many aspects are similar. This paper provides an analytical framework and tool kit for SEA follow-up. It is based on insights and tools developed within programme evaluation and environmental systems analysis. It is also grounded in empirical studies into real planning and programming practices at the regional level, but should have relevance for SEA processes at all levels. The purpose of the framework is to promote a learning-oriented and integrated use of SEA follow-up in strategic decision making. It helps to identify appropriate tools and their use in the process, and to systematise the use of available data and knowledge across the planning organization and process. It distinguishes three stages in follow-up: scoping, analysis and learning, identifies the key functions and demonstrates the informational linkages to the strategic decision-making process. The associated tool kit includes specific analytical and deliberative tools. Many of these are applicable also ex ante, but are then used in a predictive mode rather than on the basis of real data. The analytical element of the framework is organized on the basis of programme theory and “DPSIR” tools. The paper discusses three issues in the application of the framework: understanding the integration of organizations and knowledge; understanding planners' questions and analytical requirements; and understanding interests, incentives and reluctance to evaluate.
The Swedish Armed Forces have large stocks of ammunition that were produced at a time when decommissioning was not considered. This ammunition will eventually become obsolete and must be destroyed, ...preferably with minimal impact on the environment and in a safe way for personnel. The aim of this paper is to make a comparison of the environmental impacts in a life cycle perspective of three different methods of decommissioning/destruction of ammunition, and to identify the environmental advantages and disadvantages of each of these destruction methods: open detonation; static kiln incineration with air pollution control combined with metal recycling, and a combination of incineration with air pollution control, open burning, recovery of some energetic material and metal recycling. Data used are for the specific processes and from established LCA databases. Recycling the materials in the ammunition and minimising the spread of airborne pollutants during incineration were found to be the most important factors affecting the life cycle environmental performance of the compared destruction methods. Open detonation with or without metal recycling proved to be the overall worst alternative from a life cycle perspective. The results for the static kiln and combination treatment indicate that the kind of ammunition and location of the destruction plant might determine the choice of method, since the environmental impacts from these methods are of little difference in the case of this specific grenade. Different methods for destruction of ammunition have previously been discussed from a risk and safety perspective. This is however to our knowledge the first study looking specifically on environmentally aspect in a life cycle perspective.
In assessments of the environmental impacts of waste management, life-cycle assessment (LCA) helps expanding the perspective beyond the waste management system. This is important, since the indirect ...environmental impacts caused by surrounding systems, such as energy and material production, often override the direct impacts of the waste management system itself. However, the applicability of LCA for waste management planning and policy-making is restricted by certain limitations, some of which are characteristics inherent to LCA methodology as such, and some of which are relevant specifically in the context of waste management. Several of them are relevant also for other types of systems analysis. We have identified and discussed such characteristics with regard to how they may restrict the applicability of LCA in the context of waste management. Efforts to improve LCA with regard to these aspects are also described. We also identify what other tools are available for investigating issues that cannot be adequately dealt with by traditional LCA models, and discuss whether LCA methodology should be expanded rather than complemented by other tools to increase its scope and applicability.
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