Global normalisation factors for the Environmental Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment

This report quantitatively characterizes environmental impacts at global scale in relation to the 16 impact categories of the Environmental Footprint (EF) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), namely: climate change; ozone depletion; human toxicity, cancer; human toxicity, non-cancer; freshwater ecotoxicity; particulate matter; ionising radiation; photochemical ozone formation; acidification; eutrophication, terrestrial; eutrophication, marine; eutrophication, freshwater; land use; water use; resource use, fossils and resource use, minerals and metals. The results are recommended to be used as normalisation factors (NFs) in the context of the Environmental Footprint (EF) for assessing the relevance of the impacts associated to a product or system. In LCA, according to ISO 14044 (ISO 2006), normalisation (similar to weighting) is an optional steps of Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA). The normalisation factors represent the total impact of a reference region for a certain impact category (e.g. climate change, eutrophication, etc.) in a reference year. For the EF, due to the international nature of supply chains, the use of global normalisation factors is recommended. Normalisation has a relevant role to play in the Environmental Footprint to support the identification of the most relevant impact categories, life cycle stages, process and resource consumptions or emissions to ensure that the focus is put on those aspects that matter the most and for communication purposes. The global normalisation factors reported here are built on a vast collection of data on emissions and resources extracted at global scale in 2010. Key choices were made for compiling the inventories, which were then characterised by using the EF midpoint LCIA method. The results are reported for each impact category. Coverage, completeness and robustness of the underpinning inventories are discussed. With this, the report supports the generation of life cycle based indicators for monitoring the environmental dimension of the sustainability of supply chains, including contributions to global environmental impacts in relation to planetary boundaries. This in turn enables a life cycle based assessment of the sustainability of the intensification of primary production for a greening EU economy.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Pollinators in life cycle assessment: towards a framework for impact assessment

Abstract Human activities are threatening biodiversity at an unprecedented scale and pace, thus potentially affecting also the provision of critical ecosystem services, including insect pollination. Insect pollinators play an essential functional role in terrestrial ecosystems, supporting ecological stability and food security worldwide. Therefore, assessing impact on pollinators is fundamental in any effort aiming at enhancing the environmental sustainability of human production and consumption, especially in the agri-food supply chains. Different drivers are leading to pollinator populations' declines. Improving a supply-chain oriented assessment of the occurrence of pressure and impacts on pollinators is needed. However, current methodologies assessing impact along supply chains, such as life cycle assessment (LCA), miss to assess impact on pollinators. In fact, none of the existing life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) models effectively accounts for pollinators. Some LCIA models have mentioned pollination, but none has presented key drivers of impact and a proposal for integrating pollinators as target group for biodiversity protection within an LCIA framework. In order to devise a pathway towards the inclusion of impacts on pollinators in LCIA, we conducted a literature review of environmental and anthropogenic pressures acting on insect pollinators, potentially threatening pollination services. Based on the evidence in literature, we identified and described eight potential impact drivers, primarily deriving from industrial development and intensive agricultural practice: 1) intensified land use as a result of uncontrolled expansion of urban areas and modern agricultural practices; 2) use of pesticides; 3) presence of invasive alien plants; 4) competition with invasive alien pollinator species; 5) global and local climate change; 6) spread of pests and pathogens; 7) electro-magnetic pollution and 8) genetically modified crops. To account for these drivers in LCIA, there are specific modeling needs. Hence, the current study provides recommendation on how future research should be oriented to improve the current models and how novel indicators should be developed in order to cover the existing conceptual and methodological gaps

Indicators and assessment of the environmental impact of EU consumption

This report provides an overview of the LCA applied to assessing environmental impacts of consumption in EU as a basis to support several policies and the assessment of their impacts and benefits. The content builds from the results of the Life Cycle Indicators (LC-Ind2) project , aimed at developing two sets of Life Cycle Assessment-based indicators for assessing the environmental impact of EU consumption: the Consumer Footprint and the Consumption Footprint. The indicators have been designed aiming at: • monitoring the evolution of impacts over time in the EU and the Member States as well as the progress towards decoupling economic growth from environmental impacts. • building an LCA-based framework for assessing relevant consumption and eco-innovation policies. Environmental impacts are assessed from three different perspectives: product group level, consumption areas (food, housing, mobility, consumer goods, and appliances) and average EU consumer. • developing a single headline indicator to monitor the evolution of the overall environmental impacts of EU consumption and production at macro level. This includes the elaboration of a specific framework on which to build such indicator and complete time-series for each Member State and European Union as a whole. • testing ecoinnovation scenarios along the supply chains, from extraction of raw materials, to consumer behaviour, up to end of life options.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Consumption and Consumer Footprint: methodology and results

This report presents the results of the Life Cycle Indicators (LCIND2) project, aimed at developing two sets of Life cycle Assessment-based indicators for assessing the environmental impact of EU consumption: the Consumption Footprint and the Consumer Footprint. The indicators have been designed aiming at: • monitoring the evolution of impacts over time in the EU and the Member States as well as the progress towards decoupling economic growth from environmental impacts • building an LCA-based framework for assessing relevant consumption and eco-innovation policies. The methodology shall measure the environmental impacts from three different perspectives at end consumer product group level; consumption areas (food, housing, mobility, consumer goods, and appliances); the average EU consumer. • developing a single headline indicator to monitor the evolution of the overall environmental impacts of EU consumption and production at macro level. This includes the elaboration of a specific framework on which to build such indicator and complete time-series for each Member State and European Union as a whole. • testing ecoinnovation scenarios along the supply chains, from extraction of raw materials, to consumer behaviour, up to end of life options. This science for policy report is complemented by a technical report, where methodological details and assumptions as well as comparison with other available studies are reported.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Natural biotic resources in LCA: Towards an impact assessment model for sustainable supply chain management

Natural resources, both biotic and abiotic, represent fundamental economy- and life-support elements for human societies all over the world. However, since the demand for finite abiotic resources continues to increase, the existing production and consumption patterns in developed and developing countries are raising concerns about their sustainability. Therefore, a transition towards a bio-based economy, called “bio-economy”, is necessary in order to face this alarming situation. This transition requires a robust and comprehensive model of impact assessment to be developed for natural biotic resources, as their sustainable use underpins equitable and sustainable societies. The aim of this study is thus to provide key elements of the ongoing discussion on the environmental and socio-economic relevance of natural biotic resources, improving natural resource accounting and resource impact assessment. Based on the evidence in literature, we drew a comprehensive picture of natural biotic resources and their availability across the globe, in order to then cover the conceptual gap of elementary flows associated to them within the inventories of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) framework. On this basis, we aimed at providing suggestions based on renewability concepts for identifying reliable indicators to evaluate the depletion of biotic resources in the LCA context and support the transition to sustainable bio-economy at global scale.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Make Biotic Resources count in Life Cycle Assessment

The EU's knowledge base that responds to business and policy needs for social and environmental assessments of supply chains and end-of-life waste management, otherwise known as life cycle assessments. The EPLCA consists of different tools and databases including the European Life Cycle Database (ELCD): the International reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook, the Life Cycle Data Network (LCDN) and the LCA Resource Directory (RD) that includes a Reviewer Registry (RR) for LCI dataset reviewers. The ‘Single market for green products communication’ (COM/2013/0196 final) established the Environmental Footprint (EF) (Recommendation 2013/179/EU). Among the recommendations, the International Life Cycle Data (ILCD) system (and related Entry Level requirements – ILCD-EL), developed by JRC since 2007, is enforced as compliance system for Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data development. Within the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods recommended both in the ILCD and the EF framework, the assessment of resource depletion is taking into account only abiotic resources, such as minerals, metals, fossil energy carriers, etc. Even the recommended elementary flow list, in both schemes, is quite wide on the above-mentioned abiotic resources, but very poor in biotics from natural environment (the bio-based products derived from anthropic activity, such as agriculture or aquaculture, are considered as part of the technosphere and at database level are better identified as product flows, instead of elementary flows). Concerning the renewability of biotic resources, it is not sufficient to consider the availability unlimited, and therefore not critical. For this reason, several authors highlighted the need to integrate in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) the sustainability assessment of “naturally occurring biotic resources” i.e. those resources taken directly from natural environment with no, or very minor, human interactions before the final uptake of the resource itself from the environment. The JRC is in charge to develop and maintain the baseline structure of the database, and particularly the objects that are defined as standards and not modifiable by third parties in the database structure, particularly: Elementary Flows, LCIA methods, etc. In order to create an exhaustive list of elementary flows to be integrated in the current EF (and possibly ILCD) package, the JRC developed a preliminary list of elementary flows, according to the ILCD format, in XML files. The implementation of this list, after a stakeholder consultation, will allow the data developers to capture biotic resource depletion in life-cycle inventories (LCIs), and will allow in the future the creation of an LCIA method, capable of assessing the impacts derived from the use of those resources. This document provides a detailed list of the criteria adopted in the definition of the elementary flow list for biotic resources, and the complete list of flow (excel list and XML package) is also available through the permalinks provided within the document.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Environmental sustainability of European production and consumption assessed against planetary boundaries

The planetary boundaries (PBs) represent a well-known concept, which helps identify whether production and consumption systems are environmentally sustainable in absolute terms, namely compared to the Earth’s ecological limits and carrying capacity. In this study, the impacts of production and consumption of the European Union in 2010 were assessed by means of life cycle assessment (LCA)-based indicators and compared with the PBs. Five different perspectives were adopted for assessing the impacts: a production perspective (EU Domestic Footprint) and four distinct consumption perspectives, resulting from alternative modelling approaches including both top-down (input-output LCA) and bottom-up (process-based LCA). Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results were assessed against LCIA-based PBs, which adapted the PBs framework to the LCIA indicators and metrics of the Environmental Footprint method (EF). Global environmental impacts transgressed several LCIAbased PBs. When assessing the overall environmental impacts of EU consumption compared to the global LCIA-based PBs, impacts of EU consumption related to climate change, particulate matter, land use and mineral resources were close or already transgressed the global boundaries. The EU, with less than 10% of the world population, was close to transgress the global ecological limits. Moreover, when downscaling the global PBs and comparing the impacts per capita for an average EU citizen and a global one, the LCIA-PBs were significantly transgressed in many impact categories. The results are affected by uncertainty mainly due to: (a) the intrinsic uncertainties of the different LCA modelling approaches and indicators; (b) the uncertainties in estimating LCIAbased PBs, due to the difficulties in identifying limits for the Earth’s processes and referring them to LCIA metrics. The results may anyway be used to define benchmarks and policy targets to ensure that consumption and production in Europe remains within safe ecological boundaries, as well as to understand the magnitude of the effort needed to reduce the impacts.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

A proposal for the integration of the Ecosystem-Water-Food-Land-Energy (EWFLE) nexus concept into life cycle assessment: A synthesis matrix for food security

Ensuring secure access to food and energy worldwide relies on win-win share of sectoral use of constrained natural resources such as land and water, taking also into account the crucial role of ecosystems and their services. The increase in global population and the related growing demand for food and other services are exerting unsustainable pressures on natural resources, compromising their use within the ecosystems’ carrying capacity. Progressively, studies and initiatives have been developed with the aim of identifying win-win share strategies, which may compensate the sectoral demands of natural resources, addressing the need of a holistic and interdisciplinary nexus approach. In this study, thus emphasizing the importance of a holistic approach and highlighting the fundamental role of ecosystems, we propose a synthesis matrix system that describes the complex and closely bound relationship between natural resources use for food (specifically water, land), energy (defined as ecosystem service flows in our matrix system) and ecosystems, along the lines of the concept of ecosystem-water-food-land-energy nexus. The synthesis matrix system could be defined for different scales, both from the global to the local scale and has been designed to include impacts and nexus with climate change. The matrix aims at integrating quantitative and qualitative aspects, which are often neglected in traditional approaches of impact assessment. The complexity of the interactions between the different components of the nexus requires relying not only on quantitative evidences but also on expert judgment. A sensitivity check has been conducted to illustrate how to verify the convergence of expert-judgment from different experts. Moreover, being the matrix meant for supporting holistic assessment of supply chain, in the present study, the integration of the matrix within life cycle assessment (LCA) is proposed. However, in order to support the analysis of interconnections among impacts, further methodological development of the LCA methods is needed. An illustrative example related to the competition for water, land and food bioenergy production is depicted. The matrices show that there are predominantly negative impacts given by sectoral uses of resources on the provision of ecosystem services, an issue that requires most focus on resource efficiency and on the environmental and economic impacts of natural resources use while reducing the trade-offs between the sectoral demands.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Characterizing honey bee exposure and effects from pesticides for chemical prioritization and life cycle assessment

Agricultural pesticides are key contributors to pollinator decline worldwide. However, methods for quantifying impacts associated with pollinator exposure to pesticides are currently missing in comparative risk screening, chemical substitution and prioritization, and life cycle impact assessment methods. To address this gap, we developed a method for quantifying pesticide field exposure and ecotoxicity effects of honey bees as most economically important pollinator species worldwide. We defined bee intake and dermal contact fractions representing respectively oral and dermal exposure per unit mass applied, and tested our model on two pesticides applied to oilseed rape. Our results show that exposure varies between types of forager bees, with highest dermal contact fraction of 59 ppm in nectar foragers for lambda-cyhalothrin (insecticide), and highest oral intake fractions of 32 and 190 ppm in nectar foragers for boscalid (fungicide) and lambda-cyhalothrin, respectively. Hive oral exposure is up to 115 times higher than forager oral exposure. Combining exposure with effect estimates yields impacts, which are three orders of magnitude higher for the insecticide. Overall, nectar foragers are the most affected forager type for both pesticides, dominated by oral exposure. Our framework constitutes an important step toward integrating pollinator impacts in chemical substitution and life cycle impact assessment, and should be expanded to cover all relevant pesticide-crop combinations.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom