On the reporting and review requirements of ISO 14044

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Global guidance on environmental life cycle impact assessment indicators: impacts of climate change, fine particulate matter formation, water consumption and land use

Purpose Guidance is needed on best-suited indicators to quantify and monitor the man-made impacts on human health, biodiversity and resources. Therefore, the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative initiated a global consensus process to agree on an updated overall life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) framework and to recommend a non-comprehensive list of environmental indicators and LCIA characterization factors for (1) climate change, (2) fine particulate matter impacts on human health, (3) water consumption impacts (both scarcity and human health) and 4) land use impacts on biodiversity. Methods The consensus building process involved more than 100 world-leading scientists in task forces via multiple workshops. Results were consolidated during a 1-week Pellston Workshop™ in January 2016 leading to the following recommendations. Results and discussion LCIA framework: The updated LCIA framework now distinguishes between intrinsic, instrumental and cultural values, with disability-adjusted life years (DALY) to characterize damages on human health and with measures of vulnerability included to assess biodiversity loss. Climate change impacts: Two complementary climate change impact categories are recommended: (a) The global warming potential 100 years (GWP 100) represents shorter term impacts associated with rate of change and adaptation capacity, and (b) the global temperature change potential 100 years (GTP 100) characterizes the century-scale long term impacts, both including climate-carbon cycle feedbacks for all climate forcers. Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) health impacts: Recommended characterization factors (CFs) for primary and secondary (interim) PM2.5 are established, distinguishing between indoor, urban and rural archetypes. Water consumption impacts: CFs are recommended, preferably on monthly and watershed levels, for two categories: (a) The water scarcity indicator “AWARE” characterizes the potential to deprive human and ecosystems users and quantifies the relative Available WAter REmaining per area once the demand of humans and aquatic ecosystems has been met, and (b) the impact of water consumption on human health assesses the DALYs from malnutrition caused by lack of water for irrigated food production. Land use impacts: CFs representing global potential species loss from land use are proposed as interim recommendation suitable to assess biodiversity loss due to land use and land use change in LCA hotspot analyses. Conclusions The recommended environmental indicators may be used to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals in order to quantify and monitor progress towards sustainable production and consumption. These indicators will be periodically updated, establishing a process for their stewardship

Global guidance on environmental life cycle impact assessment indicators: Progress and case study

International audiencePurpose: The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) guidance flagship project of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Life Cycle Initiative aims at providing global guidance and building scientific consensus on environmental LCIA indicators. This paper presents the progress made since 2013, preliminary results obtained for each impact category and the description of a rice life cycle assessment (LCA) case study designed to test and compare LCIA indicators. Methods: The effort has been focused in a first stage on impacts of global warming, fine particulate matter emissions, water use and land use, plus cross-cutting issues and LCA-based footprints. The paper reports the process and progress and specific results obtained in the different task forces (TFs). Additionally, a rice LCA case study common to all TF has been developed. Three distinctly different scenarios of producing and cooking rice have been defined and underlined with life cycle inventory data. These LCAs help testing impact category indicators which are being developed and/or selected in the harmonisation process. The rice LCA case study further helps to ensure the practicality of the finally recommended impact category indicators. Results and discussion: The global warming TF concludes that analysts should explore the sensitivity of LCA results to metrics other than GWP. The particulate matter TF attained initial guidance of how to include health effects from PM2.5 exposures consistently into LCIA. The biodiversity impacts of land use TF suggests to consider complementary metrics besides species richness for assessing biodiversity loss. The water use TF is evaluating two stress-based metrics, AWaRe and an alternative indicator by a stakeholder consultation. The cross-cutting issues TF agreed upon maintaining disability-adjusted life years (DALY) as endpoint unit for the safeguard subject 'human health'. The footprint TF defined main attributes that should characterise all footprint indicators. 'Rice cultivation' and 'cooking' stages of the rice LCA case study contribute most to the environmental impacts assessed. Conclusions: The results of the TF will be documented in white papers and some published in scientific journals. These white papers represent the input for the Pellston workshop', taking place in Valencia, Spain, from 24 to 29 January 2016, where best practice, harmonised LCIA indicators and an update on the general LCIA framework will be discussed and agreed on. With the diversity in results and the multi-tier supply chains, the rice LCA case study is well suited to test candidate recommended indicators and to ensure their applicability in common LCA case studies

Process on “global guidance for LCA databases”

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) are collaborating within the Life Cycle Initiative to address the need for global guidance on life cycle inventory (LCI) data collection and data processing into databases for widespread use. The process was launched at the first Stakeholder Engagement Meeting, “Towards Global Guidance for LCA Databases”, in Boston on the 30th of September in 2009, where the high attendance confirmed the international interest in the UNEP/SETAC proposal. A 5-day Pellston-style workshop will take place 30th January to 4th February 2011 in Shonan Village Center in Japan. The output from the workshop will be a report that captures the current thinking and discussions by the attendees at the meeting on the issues that were identified in the initiation papers. Outcomes of the workshop, among others, are expected to include best practice guidelines to assist LCI users in better understanding the issues of setting system boundaries, allocation rules, etc., and the influence on LCI data. Follow-up activities (i.e., a second workshop or other activities considered as appropriate to address issues that were not covered, or not sufficiently covered) may be organized by the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen