Session “Midpoint, endpoint or single score for decision-making?”—SETAC Europe 25th Annual Meeting May 5th, 2015

There is a strong demand for simple understandable and clear outcomes for decision support especially in policy context or in company managements. A debate is ongoing whether clarity and simplicity may be reached adopting endpoint or even single score methods. To contribute to this debate a session was organised about the use of midpoint, endpoint or single score for sound decision support. The session contained 10 presentations about different aspects of this topic and a 40 minute panel discussion at the end. Most authors that contributed to this SETAC Europe LCA session are convinced that in many cases there is a need of endpoint or single score assessment (and its transparent communication) for sound and effective decision support. It may be the better option than letting the decision makers choose the relevant impacts subjectively. But using endpoint or single score results does not mean that midpoint indicators give no valuable results. Even though endpoint or single score indicators can be very helpful for decision support, midpoint indicators are helpful in identifying measures for specific environmental concerns (e.g. climate change, acidification or water scarcity).JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

LCIA framework and cross-cutting issues guidance within the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative

Increasing needs to provide decision support and advances in scientific knowledge in the area of life cycle assessment (LCA) led to a multi-year effort to provide global guidance on environmental life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) indicators under the auspices of the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative. As part of this effort, a specific task force focuses on improving and harmonizing LCIA cross-cutting issues as aspects spanning over several or all impact categories including spatiotemporal aspects, reference states, normalization and weighting, and uncertainties. Findings of the cross-cutting issues task force are presented along with an update of the existing UNEP-SETAC LCIA emission-to-damage framework. Specific recommendations are made for metrics for human health (Disability Adjusted Life Years, DALY) and ecosystem quality (Potentially Disappeared Fractions of Species, PDF). Additionally, we stress the importance for transparent reporting of models, reference states and assumptions, in order to facilitate cross-comparison between models. We recommend developing spatially regionalized models, if the nature of the impact shows spatial variability. Standard formats should be used for reporting spatially differentiated models and shoices regarding spatial and temporal scales need to be clearly communicated. For normalization, we recommend to use external normalization references. Over the next two years, the task force will continue its effort with focus on providing guidance for LCA practitioners on how to use the UNEP-SETAC LCIA framework as well as for method developers on how to consistently extend or improve this framework.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Area of Concern: A new paradigm in life cycle assessment for the development of footprint metrics

Purpose As a class of environmental metrics, footprints have been poorly defined, have shared an unclear relationship to life cycle assessment (LCA), and the variety of approaches to quantification have sometimes resulted in confusing and contradictory messages in the marketplace. In response, a task force operating under the auspices of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative project on environmental life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) has been working to develop generic guidance for developers of footprint metrics. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a universal footprint definition and related terminology as well as to discuss modelling implications. Methods The task force has worked from the perspective that footprints should be based on LCA methodology, underpinned by the same data systems and models as used in LCA. However, there are important differences in purpose and orientation relative to LCA impact category indicators. Footprints have a primary orientation toward society and nontechnical stakeholders. They are also typically of narrow scope, having the purpose of reporting only in relation to specific topics. In comparison, LCA has a primary orientation toward stakeholders interested in comprehensive evaluation of overall environmental performance and trade-offs among impact categories. These differences create tension between footprints, the existing LCIA framework based on the area of protection paradigm and the core LCA standards ISO14040/44. Results and discussion In parallel to area of protection, we introduce area of concern as the basis for a universal footprint definition. In the same way that LCA uses impact category indicators to assess impacts that follow a common cause-effect pathway toward areas of protection, footprint metrics address areas of concern. The critical difference is that areas of concern are defined by the interests of stakeholders in society rather than the LCA community. In addition, areas of concern are stand-alone and not necessarily part of a framework intended for comprehensive environmental performance assessment. The area of concern paradigm is needed to support the development of footprints in a way that fulfils their distinctly different purpose. It is also needed as a mechanism to extricate footprints from some of the provisions of ISO 14040/44 which are not considered relevant. Specific issues are identified in relation to double counting, aggregation and the selection of relevant indicators. Conclusions The universal footprint definition and related terminology introduced in this paper create a foundation that will support the development of footprint metrics in parallel with LCA.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

Making sense of the minefield of footprint indicators

In recent years, footprint indicators have emerged as a popular mode of reporting environmental performance. The prospect is that these simplified metrics will guide investors, businesses, public sector policymakers and even consumers of everyday goods and services in making decisions which lead to better environmental outcomes. However, without a common “DNA”, the ever expanding lexicon of footprints lacks coherence and may even report contradictory results for the same subject matter.1 The danger is that this will ultimately lead to policy confusion and general mistrust of all environmental disclosures. Footprints are especially interesting metrics because they seek to express the environmental performance of products and organizations from a life cycle perspective. The life cycle perspective is important to avoid misleading claims based only on a selected life cycle stage. For example, the water used to manufacture beverages may be important, but if a beverage includes sugar, irrigation water used to cultivate sugar cane could be a greater concern. The focus on environmental performance distinguishes footprints from technical efficiency measures, such as energy use efficiency or water use efficiency, which typically only make sense when applied to a single life cycle stage as they lack local environmental context. However, unlike technical efficiency, which can usually be accurately measured and verified, footprint indicators, with their wider view of environmental performance, are usually calculated using models which can differ in scope, complexity and model parameter settings. Despite the noble intention of using footprints to evaluate and report environmental performance, the potential inconsistency between different approaches acts as a deterrent to use in many public policymaking and business contexts and can lead to confusing and contradictory messages in the marketplace.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen