Domestic Footprint of the EU and Member States: methodology and results (2010-2018)

Towards assessing the environmental domestic impacts of production and consumption activities in the European Union (EU), the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EC-JRC) developed the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)-based Domestic Footprint indicator. The Domestic Footprint aims at assessing the environmental impacts associated to emissions and resource extraction occurring within a Member State boundary (or the whole EU boundary) by adopting a production- and territorial-based perspective. Therefore, it accounts for both production and consumption activities taking place within the Member State’s domestic territory, e.g., from economic sectors such as industry, agriculture, energy, mining, and services; and also encompass those impacts from households and government’s activities (e.g., transport, heating). It is meant to be used in association with the consumption footprint, which instead account for the trade-related impacts as well. Both indicators are essential for providing integrated assessment, e.g. in the context of zero pollution. Assessing the Domestic Footprint of individual Member States and the EU allows for identification of environmental hotspots, setting baseline for monitoring of environmental performance progresses and against which testing policy options and scenarios. Domestic footprint focuses exclusively to what is happening within MS boundaries. The Domestic Footprint builds upon an extensive data collection of detailed information of emissions to the environment and resource extraction within the EU and Member State boundaries resulting into a comprehensive inventory of the environmental pressures due to domestic production and consumption. This inventory is then characterized with the Environmental Footprint (EF reference package 3.0), including 16 environmental impact categories which can be normalised and weighted into a single score. This report, building and expanding previous JRC studies, details the updated methodological approach for the data collection of the Domestic Footprint indicator for each impact category. The exercise entailed a systematic review of data sources and collected data. Furthermore, the assessment of the Domestic Footprint at both the EU and Member States level for the period 2000-2018 is presented, including an analysis of the decoupling of environmental impacts from economic growth and the assessment of the domestic footprint against the Planetary Boundaries (PBs). The EU Domestic Footprint showed a steady decrease for the period 2000-2018, confirming an absolute decoupling of domestic environmental impacts from economic growth. Most of the impact categories also showed absolute decoupling for this period, apart from mineral resource use and land use which increased along time although at a slower pace than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), leading to relative decoupling. Considering an absolute sustainability perspective, the EU Domestic Footprint transgresses the PBs on climate change and particulate matter (being both in the high-risk area), and the PB regarding fossil resources (located in the uncertainty area). Member States showed a different contribution to the EU Domestic Footprint and to the different impact categories. The role of individual countries and their differences in impact per capita depended on the level of economic growth, the technological context (e.g., energy technologies and electricity market) and the availability of natural resources. Three impact categories contributed the most to the EU Domestic Footprint single score: climate change, particulate matter and human toxicity, non-cancer. An analysis at the elementary flow level (i.e. environmental pressures) unveiled that several indicators are driven by a small group of environmental pressures (i.e., resource, substances emitted to the environment), some environmental pressures contribute to diverse environmental impacts, and some environmental pressures are linked to the same anthropic activities (e.g., agricultural production, combustion of fossil fuels).JRC.D.3 - Land Resource

Advancing on comparability aspects for Product and Organisation Environmental Footprint

The Environmental Footprint (EF), with its Product and Organisation Environmental Footprint (PEF and OEF), is the method adopted by the European Commission to assess the environmental impacts of products, services, and organisations throughout their life cycle. Granting comparability of EF results is a key objective, in particular thanks to the definition of PEF category rules (PEFCRs) and OEF sector rules (OEFSRs). However, as following the experiences during the EF pilot phase (2014-2018), several issues relating to comparability call for more detailed guidance. Building on the existing Recommendation (EU) 2021/2279, we analysed further on: how to compare environmental impacts of organisations; how to compare environmental impacts of intermediate products; and how best define granularity of PEFCRs and OEFSRs. Each of these topics is discussed in a separate chapter of the report

Critical review of methods and models for biodiversity impact assessment and their applicability in the LCA context

Global biodiversity is in rapid decline and halting biodiversity loss is one of the most important challenges humanity must tackle now and in the immediate future. The five main direct drivers of biodiversity loss are climate change, pollution, land use, overexploitation of resources and the spread of invasive species, which result from indirect drivers such as unsustainable production and consumption. It is therefore of paramount importance that scientifically robust methods are developed to capture impacts on biodiversity from a value-chain perspective. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology allows to quantify the impact of products and organisations throughout their whole life cycle. In the LCA framework, several methods for biodiversity impact assessment have been developed. Building on previous reviews, this article aims to critically analyse methods and models for biodiversity impact assessment in LCA and beyond as comprehensively as possible, and to select those that may be most suitable for application in an LCA context. 64 methods were reviewed and 23 were selected for a detailed analysis based on availability of documentation, domain of application, geographical scope, potential to be used in LCA, and added value. The analysis addressed their goal and scope, data use and needs, and impact assessment characteristics, revealing strengths and weaknesses of the methods. There is currently no method that takes well into account at the same time the variety of pressures on biodiversity, ecosystems, taxonomic groups, essential biodiversity variables classes, and the fundamental aspects to consider in biodiversity impact assessments – but for each of these five criteria, we show which methods perform best. For the future development of biodiversity impact assessment, it is required to improve the coverage of drivers of biodiversity loss, increase ecosystem and taxonomic coverage, include the assessment of ecosystem services, and develop robust indicators that allow for complementary analysis of more essential biodiversity aspects

Environmental and economic assessment of plastic waste recycling

This study provides a comparative environmental and economic assessment of plastic waste recycling and energy recovery (incineration) technologies, using actual plant data complemented with external information. The recycling technologies include mechanical, physical and chemical recycling. The study concludes that the choice of the preferred management option for plastic waste should be based on three main criteria: i) the maximisation of material recovery while minimising processing impacts (principally related to energy consumption), in line with the waste hierarchy; ii) the specificity of the plastic waste stream and the treatment thereby required (technical feasibility); and iii) the economic feasibility. Preliminary economic data suggests that some chemical recycling technologies may be already economically viable without financial support, whereas others might become so in the medium to long term. As the sectors of physical recycling and chemical recycling are currently experiencing rapid technological developments, the analysis presented in this study should be updated as technologies become more mature, also in view of formulating appropriate and possible policy interventions.JRC.D.3 - Land Resources and Supply Chain Assessment

Revision of EU Ecolabel criteria for Absorbent Hygiene Products and Reusable Menstrual Cups (previously Absorbent Hygiene Products)

This Preliminary Report is intended to provide the background information for the revision of the EU Ecolabel criteria for the product group ‘Absorbent Hygiene Products’. The previous set of criteria was adopted in 2014 through Commission Decision 2014/763/EU. The revised EU Ecolabel criteria are set to cover a wider scope as for the first time they include a set of criteria targeting reusable menstrual cups. The product group has been enlarged thus to cover ‘absorbent hygiene products’ and ‘reusable menstrual cups'. To support the revision process with technical evidence, this Preliminary Report consists of: — an analysis of the scope, definitions and description of the legal framework, as well as a first proposal for the revised scope (Task 1); — a market analysis (Task 2); — a technical analysis, including an environmental assessment (Task 3). This background information, combined with input received from the stakeholders involved, has been used in the revision process to justify the choices behind the revision of the criteria.JRC.B.5 - Circular Economy and Sustainable Industr

Safe and Sustainable by Design chemicals and materials - Methodological Guidance

This Methodological Guidance clarifies some aspects of the voluntary application of the "safe and sustainable by design" (SSbD) framework for chemicals and materials. It combines the disciplines of "Risk Assessment" (RA) and "Sustainability Assessment" (SA), which have different methodologies, framing and terminology. This Methodological Guidance explains the rationale of the framework and replies to the feedback collected during several stakeholder consultations, which have contributed to its progressive refinement. It furthermore presents a method for scoping analysis and discusses why it is important to correctly frame the subsequent SSbD assessment. Following on, thematic chapters specifically address aspects of the two domains of the framework: safety assessment and environmental sustainability assessment, and also address socio-economic assessment

Safe and sustainable by design chemicals and materials. Framework for the definition of criteria and evaluation procedure for chemicals and materials

The EU CSS action plan foresees the development of a framework to define safe and sustainable by design (SSbD) criteria for chemicals and materials. The SSbD is an approach to support the design, development, production and use of chemicals and materials that focuses on providing a desirable function (or service), while avoiding or minimising harmful impacts to human health and the environment. The SSbD concept integrates aspects for the domain of safety, circularity and functionality of chemicals and materials, with sustainability consideration throughout their lifecycle, minimising their environmental footprint. SSbD aims at facilitating the industrial transition towards a safe, zero pollution, climate-neutral and resource-efficient economy, addressing adverse effects on humans, ecosystems and biodiversity from a lifecycle perspective. To fulfil these ambitions, there is the need to develop a new framework for the definition of safe and sustainable by design criteria for chemicals and materials. To do so, several frameworks were reviewed including initiatives from research, industry, governmental agencies and NGOs. Capitalising on this information, a framework was developed and is presented in this report including a methodology for the definition of possible SSbD criteria and implementation mechanisms

Valorization of alginate for the production of hydrogen via catalytic aqueous phase reforming

Alginate, a carbohydrate abundant in the outer cell wall of macroalgae, was subjected to catalytic aqueous phase reforming (APR) to produce hydrogen using a 3% Pt/C commercial catalyst. The performance of the process was evaluated according to the conversion of the carbon to gas, the hydrogen yield and the hydrogen selectivity. The catalyst and feed amount, temperature, reaction time, pH and the presence of H2were modified to understand the dependence of the outcome of the process on these parameters. The presence of the catalyst was fundamental in order to increase the hydrogen yield compared to the uncatalyzed reaction, and it can be reused without activity loss. In addition, it was observed that the increase in alginate loading led to a decreasing conversion of the carbon; the yield of hydrogen increases with the increasing temperature and the basic pH had a strong beneficial effect in terms of selectivity. The plateau appeared after 2 h was attributed to the low kinetic tendency of the intermediate compounds to produce hydrogen. The study validated what is present in literature for simpler molecules, moving at the same time towards a more complex feed, closer to a possible industrial application

Critical review of methods and models for biodiversity impact assessment and their applicability in the LCA context

Global biodiversity is in rapid decline and halting biodiversity loss is one of the most important challenges humanity must tackle now and in the immediate future. It is therefore of paramount importance that scientifically robust methods are developed to capture impacts on biodiversity from a value-chain perspective. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology allows to quantify the impact of products and organisations throughout their whole life cycle. This article aims to critically analyse all methods for biodiversity impact assessment in LCA and beyond, and to select those that may be most suitable for application in a LCA context. 55 methods were reviewed and 18 were selected for a detailed analysis based on availability of documentation, domain of application, geographical scope, potential to be used in LCA and added value. The analysis addressed their goal and scope, data use and needs, and impact assessment characteristics, reveiling strengths and weaknesses of the methods. There is currently no method that takes into account all five main drivers of biodiversity loss. For the future development of biodiversity impact assessment, it is required to improve the coverage of drivers of biodiversity loss, increase ecosystem and taxonomic coverage, include the assessment of ecosystem services, and develop robust indicators that allow for complementary analysis of more essential biodiversity aspects.JRC.D.3 - Land Resources and Supply Chain Assessment

Environmental and economic assessment of plastic waste recycling and energy recovery pathways in the EU

Physical and chemical recycling technologies are seen as key to increasing plastic recycling, although their potential environmental and economic impacts are not yet fully understood. This study provides a comparative environmental and economic assessment of plastic waste recycling (mechanical, physical, chemical) and energy recovery, using primary data complemented with external information. Our findings suggest that for climate change mitigation, physical or chemical recycling constitute better alternative for processing plastic waste currently sent to energy recovery or landfill. This preference does not hold true for other impact categories given the current EU energy mix, but it is likely to apply in a future cleaner EU energy system. A clear ranking could not be established amongst mechanical, physical and chemical recycling as their environmental performance depends on the specific plastic waste fraction treated. The same applies for costs. The findings of this study can be used to support policy makers and businesses in their decision-making by establishing whether either recycling (mechanical, physical, chemical) or energy recovery of plastic waste are the preferred solution from an environmental and economic point of view.JRC.B.5 - Circular Economy and Sustainable Industr