Life Cycle Approaches
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Life Cycle Approaches The road from analysis to practice UNEP/ SETAC Life Cycle Initiative Copyright 2005 UNEP This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part and in any form for educational or non-profit purposes without special permission from the copyright holder, provided acknowledgement of the source is made. UNEP would appreciate receiving a copy of any publication that uses this publication as a source. No use of this publication may be made for resale or for any other commercial purpose whatsoever without prior permission in writing from UNEP. First edition 2005 This UNEP publication was supported financially by the sponsoring partners of the Life Cycle Initiative: Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE), American Plastics Council (APC), Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe (APME), International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), General Motors, Governments of Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Quebec and Switzerland as well as the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan. The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the United Nations Environmental Programme concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area of its authorities, or concerning delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Moreover, the views expressed do not necessarily represent the decision or the stated policy of the United Nations Environment Programme, nor does citing of trade names or commercial processes constitute any form of endorsement. UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATION ISBN: PRINT: 2 Life Cycle Approaches The road from analysis to practice United Nations Environment Programme Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE) Production and Consumption Unit 39-43, Quai André Citroën 75739 Paris Cedex 15 France Tel: +33 1 44 37 14 50 Fax: +33 1 44 37 14 74 E-mail: [email protected] URL: http://www.uneptie.org A publication of: UNEP/ SETAC Life Cycle Initiative 3 4 “We must develop production and consumption policies to improve the products and services provided, while reducing environmental and health impacts, using, where appropriate, science-based approaches, such as life cycle analysis“. Plan of Implementation, World Summit on Sustainable Development “Consumers are increasingly interested in the world behind the product they buy. Life cycle thinking implies that everyone in the whole chain of a product’s life cycle, from cradle to grave, has a responsibility and a role to play, taking into account all the relevant external effects. The impacts of all life cycle stages need to be considered comprehensively when taking informed decisions on production and consumption patterns, policies and management strategies.” Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director, UNEP “The results from the working groups [of SETAC on life cycle assessment] constitute a key contribution to the start of the UNEP-SETAC Initiative. A first activity in this Life Cycle Initiative will be to perform definition studies…; the results presented here will be an important input to the latter study. It is an explicit aim of the Life Cycle Initiative to incorporate working groups into the programme, in order to stimulate bottom-up scientific input.” SETAC book, Life Cycle Impact Assessment: Striving towards Best Practice 5 Authors This publication was prepared by Helias A. Udo de Haes and Martijn van Rooijen from the Institute of Environmental Science (CML) at the Leiden University in the Netherlands. The report is based on the Definition Studies whose elaboration was led by Konrad Saur (Five Winds International), Greg Norris (Harvard University) and Olviier Jolliet (Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne). Guido Sonnemann from UNEP DTIE reviewed the first drafts of the document, had the operational responsibility, and provided input on sustainable consumption and production policies and for the overview on life cycle approaches. Furthermore, this report includes written contributions from the authors of the Definition Studies of the three programmes, as listed in Annex 5. Acknowledgements The Editorial board of the production comprised Fritz Balkau and Bas de Leeuw of UNEP DTIE. Thanks are also to the following members of the International Life Cycle Panel who provided comments to an earlier draft of the publication: Financial support for the project was provided by the sponsoring partners of the Life Cycle Initiative: Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE), American Plastics Council (APC), Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe (APME), International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), General Motors, Governments of Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Quebec and Switzerland as well as the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan. The English text was revised by: The design of the publication was done by: The Definition Studies of the UNEP/ SETAC Life Cycle Initiative, on which the report is based can be downloaded from the web-site of the Life Cycle Initiative. • Life Cycle Management Program - www.uneptie.org/pc/sustain/lcinitiative/lcm_program.htm • Life Cycle Inventory Program - www.uneptie.org/pc/sustain/lcinitiative/lci_program.htm • Life Cycle Impact Assessment Program - www.uneptie.org/pc/sustain/lcinitiative/lcia_program.htm 6 Table of Contents Preface________________________________________________________________________ 9 Executive summary _____________________________________________________________ 11 1. Introduction _______________________________________________________________ 13 1.1. Towards sustainable consumption and production _________________________________ 13 1.2. An introduction to life cycle approaches__________________________________________ 14 1.3. Dealing with limitations of life cycle approaches ___________________________________ 18 2. Overview of life cycle approaches ______________________________________________ 20 2.1. A general overview ___________________________________________________________ 20 2.2. Concepts____________________________________________________________________ 21 2.3. Analysis ____________________________________________________________________ 22 2.4. Practice_____________________________________________________________________ 32 2.5. The Focus of the report________________________________________________________ 43 3. State of the art of life cycle approaches _________________________________________ 44 3.1. Identifying the state of the art __________________________________________________ 44 3.2. LCI data availability and validation _____________________________________________ 45 3.3. LCI methodological consistency ________________________________________________ 46 3.4. LCIA framework and terminology ______________________________________________ 47 3.5. LCIA midpoint and damage categories __________________________________________ 48 3.6. Defining Life Cycle Management _______________________________________________ 50 3.7. The LCM framework and toolbox_______________________________________________ 51 3.8. Life cycle approaches in SMEs and developing countries____________________________ 52 3.9. Summary of the state of the art _________________________________________________ 53 4. The user needs assessment ___________________________________________________ 55 4.1. Assessing the user needs _______________________________________________________ 55 4.2. The User Needs Survey________________________________________________________ 55 4.3. Life Cycle Management _______________________________________________________ 55 4.4. Life Cycle Inventory Analysis __________________________________________________ 56 4.5. Life Cycle Impact Assessment __________________________________________________ 56 4.6. User needs in SMEs and developing countries _____________________________________ 57 5. The action plan ____________________________________________________________ 60 7 5.1. Defining an action plan________________________________________________________ 60 5.2. Addressing the limitations of life cycle approaches _________________________________ 60 5.3. Capacity building and dissemination ____________________________________________ 62 5.4. Some perspectives on life cycle approaches _______________________________________ 63 Annexes ______________________________________________________________________ 66 A1. Extension of the state of the art______________________________________________ 67 Life Cycle Management priority topics _________________________________________________ 67 Current LCI databases in the world____________________________________________________ 70 LCIA midpoint categories ____________________________________________________________ 72 Experiences with LCA case study libraries ______________________________________________ 74 A2. User Needs Survey profiles _________________________________________________ 75 A3. Overview of task forces ____________________________________________________ 78 Experience-sharing and guidance oriented task forces_____________________________________ 78 Practice and training oriented task forces _______________________________________________ 80 Task forces on crosscutting issues______________________________________________________ 81 A4. References and further reading______________________________________________ 83 A5. DAT/PRG member details __________________________________________________ 85 8 Preface In 2002, UNEP joined forces