Sustainable Consumption and Production - Development of an Evidence Base. Project Ref.: SCP001 Resource Flows Sustainable Consumption and Production - Development of an Evidence Base Appendix to Final Project Report Appendix SCP001 1/196 Projec Ref.: SCP001 Resource Flows May 2006 Appendix SCP001 2/196 Contents I Review of Resource Flow Studies (Section 4) 6 I.1 Specific assessment requirements 6 I.1.1 General Methodological Procedure 6 I.1.2 Assessment Criteria 7 I.1.3 The Scorecard System 12 I.2 Characteristics of General MFA Methodologies 15 I.3 Detailed Assessment Results 19 I.3.1 Economy-wide Material Flow Analysis 19 I.3.2 Bulk Material or Material System Analysis – The Biffaward Series 31 I.3.3 Analysis of Material Flows by Sector: NAMEAs, Generalised Input-Output Models, and Physical Input-Output Analysis 35 I.3.4 Life Cycle Inventories 47 I.3.5 Substance Flow Analysis 54 I.3.6 Hybrid Methodologies 61 I.4 Environmental Impact Assessments 66 I.5 Policy Analysis 73 I.6 Discussion of Study by Van der Voet et al. (2005) 77 II Review of Biffaward Studies (Section 5) 79 II.1 Tables: Detailed assessment criteria, policy agendas, list of Biffaward studies 79 II.2 Assessment notes made for each study 87 III Development of an Indicator for Emissions and Impacts associated with the Consumption of Imported Goods and Services (Section 6) 152 III.1 Specific assessment requirements 152 III.2 Review of existing approaches described in the literature 155 III.2.1 Studies not involving input-output calculations 155 III.2.2 Studies involving input-output calculations 159 III.3 Detailed Assessment Results 176 III.4 Technical Specification 179 III.4.1 General framework (ideal model) 179 III.4.2 How to deal with data problems 181 III.4.3 Details of extending the model 188 Appendix SCP001 3/196 List of Figures Figure I.1 - General Assessment Procedure...............................................................................7 Figure I.2 - Scorecard system for assessing the policy relevance of the different MFA methods..............................................................................................................................7 Figure I.3 - General Regional Material Flow Accounting Scheme ........................................19 Figure I.4 - Official Japanese Material Flow Policy Targets ..................................................25 Figure I.5 - Measuring Decoupling via EMFA indicators: DMC vs GDP ..............................26 Figure I.6 - Relationship between the volume of physical flows and their impact per unit ...28 Figure I.7 - Japanese MFA policy embedded in the vision of a material-cycle economy.......29 Figure I.8 - The four discrete stages of a life cycle assessment...............................................47 Figure I.9 - Incomplete Coverage of Supply Chain by process based LCA methodologies ...50 Figure I.10 - A schematic concept of SFAs ............................................................................54 Figure I.11 - Good practice: working procedure SFA ............................................................56 Figure I.12 - Quantitative policy analysis in a static perspective ............................................73 List of Tables Table I.1 - Scorecard ratings....................................................Error! 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Table I.2 - Different flow types as distinguished by Eurostat .................................................16 Table I.3 - Overview general MFA methodologies.................................................................18 Table I.4 - EMFA Indicators ...................................................................................................21 Table I.5 - Environmental Indicators included in the UK's NAMEA publication ..................42 Table I.6 - LCA/LCI applications for government and companies .........................................52 Table I.7 - Applications for LCI/A data ..................................................................................53 Table I.8 - Criteria for choosing LCI methods .......................................................................64 Table I.9 - Impact categories of LCA approaches ...................................................................69 Table II.1 - Assessment criteria ...............................................................................................82 Table II.2 - SCP policy agendas – Used in the assessment of Criteria P1...............................83 Table II.3 - Other environmental policy agendas - Used in the assessment of Criteria P2 .....84 Table II.4 - The Biffaward studies...........................................................................................86 Table III.1 - Criteria used in the assessment of studies on embedded emissions ..................154 Table III.2 - Overview of a monetary supply and use table framework................................187 Table III.3 - Consumption of water resources by industrial sector in the UK, 1997/98 .......190 Table III.4 - Total waste arisings in the United Kingdom, 2002/03 .....................................192 List of Boxes Box I.1 - Initiatives and programmes relevant to the UK's SCP agenda .................................13 Box I.2 - Policy Questions Economy-wide Material Flow Analysis applied to UK ...............20 Box I.3 - An introduction to monetary and physical input-output...........................................36 Box I.4 - Policy questions EIOA .............................................................................................37 Box I.5 - Good Practice Generalised Input-Output Analysis ..................................................44 Box I.6 - Policy questions lifecycle assessment ......................................................................48 Box I.7 - Overview ISO LCI/A standards ...............................................................................49 Box I.8 - Policy Questions - Substance Flow Analysis ...........................................................55 Box I.9 - Good Practice: Standardised SFAs in Denmark.......................................................59 Appendix SCP001 4/196 Appendix SCP001 5/196 Review of Resource Flow Studies (Section 4) I.1 Specific assessment requirements I.1.1 General Methodological Procedure The general assessment procedure for the review of the MFA methodologies is described in detail here. The assessment criteria are defined in detail in Section I.1.2. Drawing on the project tender specifications these criteria cover three broad categories: 1. Methodological robustness and soundness 2. Data availability and robustness 3. Policy Relevance Each of these categories is assessed separately and judgements are expressed in an ordinal rating system distinguishing “good”, “satisfactory” and “unsatisfactory” following the colour scheme previously outlined. While the assessment of “methodological robustness and soundness” is kept general, “data availability and robustness” as well as “policy relevance” are assessed in a UK-specific context to maximise the value to DEFRA and the UK’s research and policy community of this report. In this part of the report no distinction is made between useful and required characteristics. Moreover, no scoring point system is maintained and no ordinal final verdict is provided. The reason for this is that this part of the study compares very different methodologies rather than the quality of individual studies. This cannot easily be achieved through a rigid framework. The goal of this assessment is to understand for each unique methodology its different strengths and weaknesses and its relevance and applicability to the UK’s SCP agenda. The assessment matrix is therefore used to identify potential methodological limitations and to demonstrate in which policy context different approaches could be best applied. The general assessment procedure is summarised in Figure 0.1. Appendix SCP001 6/196 Figure 0.1 - General Assessment Procedure Further adjustments have been undertaken in the assessment of the policy relevance of the various resource flow methodologies. As policy generates demand for statistics the primary question is how the different methodologies fit into the UK’s SCP, SD, and general environmental agenda. Therefore, three sets of policy questions from the SCP agenda are used here: one referring to general SCP objectives derived from “Changing Patterns” (DEFRA, 2003), a second to specific SCP objectives derived from “One Planet Economy” (DEFRA, 2005b) and the third to the specific questions raised by DEFRA in the course of this tender. The questions were written down on scorecards (see Section I.1.3) and for each methodology it was assessed whether or not a MFA methodology can actually contribute to answering them. The general way of assessing the policy relevance is summarised in Figure 0.2. Figure 0.2 - Scorecard system for assessing the policy relevance of the different MFA methods I.1.2 Assessment Criteria Below, the different assessment criteria are defined. For each criterion a specification is provided what qualifies a certain judgement in the ordinal rating system (good, satisfactory, unsatisfactory). General Assessment Criteria Criterion Description Specification B1 Good Clearly defined system Unambiguous identification of material system boundaries in human Unambiguous identification of the economic/human System System and material sphere Boundaries Boundaries system Appendix SCP001 7/196 Satisfactory System boundaries only Physical flows or relevant part