Wetensch. publicatieInstitute of Environmental Science

Guinée, J.B.

Heijungs, R.

Leiden University Scholary Publications

On the Usefulness of Life Cycle Assessment of Packaging REINOUT HEIJUNGS* JEROEN B. GUINEE Centre of Environmental Science Leiden University P.O. Box 9518 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands ABSTRACT / In reaction to a paper in Environmental Management in which the sense and sensibility of environmental assessments ot packaging were questioned, it is argued that these types of assessments may be very useful, provided the relevant types of questions are posed. These boundary conditions are discussed, along with an overview of more recent methodological developments with respect to environmental assessment of products. In an issue of Environmental Management, Kooijman (1993) discusses a number  of  arguments that could induce people to believe that it is useless and fruitless to spend time in assessing packaging with respect to environmental properties. Kooijman discusses some aspects of  environmental  assessment of  products in general, focusing on pack- aging. We add a number  of  standard references, which have appeared during the last two years, and of  which Kooijman is apparently not aware, and pose some critical notes to some key issues of  his paper. Although he makes a number  of  good points, we would like to explain why his overall conclusions are too strong. On M e t h o d o l o g i c a l  D e v e l o p m e n t  of Env i ronmen ta l  A s s e s s m e n t s  of P roduc t  Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the currently widely accepted term for environmental assessments of  products on a cradle-to-grave basis as described by Kooijman. For a novice in the field, Kooijman's state- ments on the state-of-the-art of  this type of assess- ments may be disappointing. This is due to an incom- plete overview of  the developments with respect to LCA in the early 90s. Below, we provide a brief sum- mary of  what we consider to be the most relevant S o u r c e s .  We have been involved as the first two authors of  a report,  commissioned by the Dutch government,  to KEY WORDS: Life cycle assessment; Packaging; Products *Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. design an improved methodology for LCA (Heijungs and others 1992). Similar projects in other  countries have resulted in similar reports. Examples are: the one prepared for the Nordic Council (Anonymous 1992), that of  EPA (Vigon and others 1993), and the one prepared for PWMI (Boustead 1992). The  Cana- dian Standards Association is currently working at such a report .  A standard framework and terminol- ogy is provided by the fairly broad accepted Code of  Practice of  the Society of  Environmental  Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) (Consoli and others 1993). Concise surveys of  methodology in a broad sense are provided in the form of  a paper by Guin6e and others (1993a,b). Kooijman criticizes in particular what he calls the assessment stage and states that this procedure  is not feasible. Impact assessment, as it is now generally coined, is in rapid development.  We mention a few recent activities. In February 1992, an expert  work- shop was held in Sandestin, Florida (Fava and others 1993). In the already mentioned Nordic report ,  an extensive chapter  is devoted to impact assessment (or classification, as it is called there) (Finnveden and oth- ers 1992). Our  report  (Heijungs and others 1992) provides an extensive operational method for a simi- lar type of  classification. In January 1993, an expert 's workship was held in Lyngby, Denmark, on the topic of  ecotoxicity assessment in LCA (Bro-Rasmussen and others, 1995). In the SETAC-Europe LCA news, a call for experts was readily answered (de Oude 1993). SETAC and the International Organization for Stan- dardization (ISO) are initiating working groups to ad- dress this issue. The  conclusion here is that this com- ponent  is in rapid development and is a crucial part of  LCA. Environmental Management Vol. 19, No. 5, pp. 665-668 9 1995 Springer-Verlag New York Inc. 666 R. Heijungs and J. B. Guinee On the Environmental Assessment of Packaging So much for the background of  LCA. Our  criticism concerns the contents. Kooijman argues that it is wrong to make an environmental  assessment of  pack- aging and that one should study the total food system instead of  a selected part  of  it. He essentially gives two reasons for this: 9 the packaging typically represents a small portion of the environmental  problems of  the food sys- tem; 9 environmental  assessment of  the packaging can- not be isolated f rom the food product  it contains. On the Relevance of Irrelevancies We agree that it will often appear  that the food product  itself has considerably more environmental  impact than the packaging. This fact may, however, not lead to an apathetic attitude. Seen in a b roader  perspective, food products are responsible for only a small part  of  the environmental  impacts caused by the total industry and transportation. Still, many people, including Kooijman, direct their attention to analyz- ing and reducing the environmental  impacts of  food products. Rightly,. their attitude is inspired by the be- lief that we have to improve the entire economic sys- tem. We therefore do not see why analysis of  packag- ing, if possible, is senseless. It can easily be conjectured that there is an issue with a relevance that is between the food pur sang and the package pur sang: the form in which the food is conserved. Desiring to buy peas, a consumer  has the choice between fresh, frozen, dried, and retort-pre-  served peas. The  choice is seldom motivated by envi- ronmental  arguments.  Only for the same type of  food (peas), provided in the same form (retort preserved), is the choice between different package materials (tin, glass), in practice, influenced by environmental  con- siderations. Kooijman neglects this intermediate level of  environmental  concern. Of  course, the reasons for spoiling of  5%-30% of  milk, and for spoiling 70 million kg of  bread have to he investigated. Wasting of  food means that substan- tial parts of  the emission of chemicals and extraction of  resources have been in vain. It may be that the introduction of  other sizes of  packaging can decrease this stream of  wasted food. However, if it is concluded that, for example,  0.75-liter packaging would largely solve this problem, we still would have to decide on the packaging material. It also could turn out that large product  losses cannot  be avoided despite adjust- ment  of  package size. T h e  packaging of  the food product  remains an interesting problem, which can be studied independently of  product  losses caused by inappropr ia te  packaging size. On Isolating Content and Packaging We agree that, even if we compare  packages of  the same size, it may happen  that different  packaging materials have different  propert ies with respect to product  loss, for instance, because of  clinging of  yo- gurt  to packaging. One might  be tempted to incorpo- rate this in the assessment without analysis of  the food product  itself. Rightly, Kooijman's point is that the differences in adhesive properties of  packaging alter- natives give rise to different  amounts  of  food spilling. Assume that drinking 1000 liters o f  milk requires 1050 one-liter bottles or  1025 one-liter cartons. This can only be taken into account by calculating and add- ing the impacts of  25 liters of  milk to the impacts of  1050 bottles. We hold, however, that the aim of  the assessment determines whether  and how this should be taken into account. It will seldom occur that a family wants to drink exactly 1 liter of  milk at lunch. Instead, they have a container with approximately 1 liter, and pour  out a number  of  glasses. I f  there is a little more,  the question will be asked: "Who wants the last half cup?" In contrast, if 5% of  the milk clings to the packaging, they just drink a little bit less. They  do not buy an additional bottle. They will buy another  bottle of  course, when only 50% of  that package size of  milk can be consumed. It is difficult to fix a boundary  between the situa- tion where it matters, and the situation where it does not. This largely depends on the particular situation. In a canteen, a fixed number  of  consumptions is re- quired, so that a loss of  1% due to clinging may indeed result in 1% more  purchasing. For a small family, a loss of  5% may have negligible effects. It thus will depend entirely on the aim of  the study if product  loss be part  of  the assessment. It is conceivable that LCA tells us that a household should prefer  glass bottles, whereas canteens should prefer  carton packages. The  environmental  t ruth is user-dependent  and thus con- text-sensitive. This may have consequences for an ecolabeling system. This a rgument  may be extended to Kooijman's statement that a small package may in some cases be better than a large one. We completely agree with this, Life Cycle Assessment of Packaging 667 and we hope that LCA will not be used to prove that large packages are better than small ones. The essential ingredient in LCA to avoid obtaining such nonsensical results is the functional unit. The functional unit is the basis of  the comparison. It has been introduced because it does not make sense to compare one returnable glass bottle with one one-way carton packaging. The  functional unit in Mekel and Huppes (1991)) was defined as the packaging of  1000 liters of  milk. This functional unit was used to com- pare 1000 one-liter carton packages with 33.3 one- liter glass bottles, assuming a trip rate of 30, and with 13.3 one-liter polycarbonate bottles, assuming a trip rate of  75. In principle, this functional unit would allow the comparison of  2-liter bottles as well, or even the comparison of  a l-liter bottle with a 2-liter bottle. As the actual alternatives were all of  the l-liter model, the functional unit did not explicitly exclude this. The  important thing is that only l-liter bottles were com- pared, as they were considered functionally equiva- lent. Only if the packaging alternatives provide equiv- alent functions, a comparison is sensible. For some users, l-liter and 2-liter bottles are functionally equiv- alent. First, a choice has to be made on the comparable alternatives. In some cases it may be useful to com- pare two packaging systems for coffee milk: the l-liter bottle versus the individual portions of  10 ml in plastic cups. This exercise will be completely uninteresting for a consumer who only rarely uses coffee milk, but for daily use by a family, this is really interesting. They have to choose between the two systems and might want to use environmental information in their deci- sion along with other aspects related to consumer preference, such as convenience and cost. The user eventually makes an overall evaluation of  different aspects, such as cost and convenience,judges what he finds most important, and decides. LCA thus tries to provide information on the environmental aspects only. Towards a Sensible Environmental Assessment It is clear that consumers, from single households to professional organizations, make purchase deci- sons. Protection of  the environment demands that en- vironmental considerations play a role in this deci- sion-making process. This begins with the question of  whether the product is really needed (do I really need food?), whether another product is preferable (do 1 really need peas for food?), which form is best (do I really need retort-conserved peas for food?), which package is best (do I really need retort-conserved peas in glass tot food?), and ends with a choice of  packag- ing size (do I really need retort-conserved peas in l-liter glass jars tor food?). Aspects that could subse- quently enter the analysis are the amount  of  food spilt by adhesion or by going bad. Investigating consumer behavior in this respect, thereby making a distinction between the average consumer, small families, large families, canteens, etc., can improve the value of  LCA and can increase the environmental gain that can be attained. Acknowledgments We thank Prof. Dr. Helias A. Udo de Haes for helping to clarify our arguments. The  comments of  two referees were used to improve the paper as well. Literature Cited Anonymous. 1992. Product life cycle assessment. Principles and methodology, Nord, Copenhagen. Boustead, I. 1992. Eco-balance. Methodology for commod- ity thermoplastics. APME/PWMI, Brussels. Bro-Rasmussen, F. 1995. Proceedings of a workshop on ec- otoxicological assessment in LCA (in preparation). Consoli, F., D. Allen, I. Boustead, N. de Oude, J. Fava, W. Franklin, B. Quay, R. Parrish, R. Perriman, D. Postleth- waite, J. Seguin, and B. Vigon. 1993. Guidelines for life- cycle assessment: A code of practice, 1st ed. SETAC, Brus- sels. Fava, J., F. Consoli, R. Denison, K. Dickson, T. Mohin, and B. Vigon. 1993. A conceptual framework for life-cycle impact assessment. SETAC, Pensacola, Florida. Finnveden, G., Y. Andersson-SkOld, M.-O. Samuelsson, L. Zetterberg, and L. G. Lindfors. 1992. Classification (im- pact analysis) in connection with life cycle assessments. A preliminary study. In Anonymous (ed.), Product life cycle assessment. Principles and methodology. Nord, Copen- hagen. Guin6e, J. B., G. Huppes, and H. A. Udo de Haes. 1993a. Quantitative life cycle assessment of products. 1: Goal definition and inventory. Journal of Cleaner Production 1:3-13. Guin6e, J. B., R. Heijungs, G. Huppes, and H. A. Udo de Haes. 1993b. Quantitative life cycle assessment of prod- ucts. 2: Classification, valuation and improvement analy- sis. Journal of Cleaner Production 1:81-91. Heijungs, R.,J. B. Guin6e, G. Huppes, R. M. Lankreijer, H. A. Udo de Haes, A. Wegener Sleeswijk, A. M. M. Ansems, P. G. Eggels, R. van Duin, and H. P. de Goede. 1992. Environmental life cycle assessment of products. I: Guide--October 1992. II: Backgrounds--October 1992. CML, Leiden. 668 R. Heijungs and J. B. Guin6e Kooijman,J. M. 1993. Environmental assessment of  packag- ing: Sense and sensibility. Environmental Management 17:575-586. Mekel, O. C. L., and G. Huppes. 1990. Environmental ef- fects of different package systems for fresh milk. CML, Leiden. Oude, N. T. de, 1993. Experts n e e d . . ,  experts. SETAC- Europe LCA News 3:1-2. Vigon, B. W., D. A. Tolle, W. Cornaby, H. C. Latham, C. L. Harrison, T. L. Boguski, R. G. Hunt, and J. D. Sellers. 1993. Life-cycle assessment: Inventory guidelines and principles. EPA, Cincinnati, Ohio. 

On the usefulness of life cycle assessment of packaging

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