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College aantekeningen Sustainability assessment and management tools (GEO4-2602)
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Lecture notes of 31 pages for the course Sustainability assessment and management tools at UU (SAM lecture notes)
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LECTURE 1Greenwashing:
- Corporate practice of making diverting sustainability claims to cover a questionable
environmental record
Identifying the type of greenwashing:
- At the firm level or at the product/service level:
o Executional greenwashing: images of nature/animals/colors/
o Claim greenwashing: deceptiveness vague, ambitious, false, lie
Product level greenwashing:
Sin of the hidden trade-off: a claim suggesting that a product is green based on a narrow set
of attributes without attention to other important environmental issues
Sin of no proof: no substantial supporting information or by certification
Sin of vagueness: poorly defined or broad and likely misunderstood
Sin of worship false labels: given the false impression of third party approval
Sin of irrelevance: truth, but unimportant (something is already legally required)
Sin of lesser of two evils: organic cigarettes
,LECTURE 2 LCA
LCA application: In companies
- Product design and improvement
- Ecolabelling and marketing
- Strategic planning
- Synergies in industries (CE)
LCA application: In policy
- To map the key sectors for improvement in the economy (bottom-up)
- Prioritize improvement measures through policy regulations (e.g. energy labels)
- Procurement
LCA application: in technology development
Limitations LCA
Looks at potential instead of actual impacts
Does not include risks
Geographic: environmental impacts are aggregated at global scale (not focsed in a specific
location)
Temporal: static method
International guidelines:
- ISO
- ILCD
- PEF/OEF
LCA & labels:
- Environmental labels and declarations – type I II III
Goal and scope definition
Goal definition
o RQ, target group, application
o The intended application (what) = find improvements, compare products, estimate
impacts
o The reasons for carrying out the study (why) =
o The intended audience
, o Comparative assertions = claim regarding the superiority of the product with help of
critical review, impact assessment, no weighting (according to PEF you should
weigh)
ILCD on goal definition: 3 types of decision context
1. Type A: micro level decision support
a. No structural consequences outside decision context
2. Type B: meso/macro level decision support
a. Structural changes outside decision context
3. Type c: Accounting
a. Including interactions with other systems
PEF:PEFCR
- Product category-specific, life cycle based rules that complement general methodological
guidance for PEF studies by providing further specification
LCI: modelling approach
- Attributional (accounting)
o System modelling approach in which inputs and outputs are attributed to the
functional unit of a product system by linking and or partitioning the unit process of
the system
- Consequential (Change-oriented)
o Expected to change as a consequence of a change in demand of the functional unit
Main modelling differences
- Consequential = using marginal instead of average technology
- Solving multifunctionality
Attributional approach • To find points of improvement for existing products
• To estimate the footprint of a product, e.g. to derivate taxes
• To compare the environmental performance of two products,
without interactions with other systems
Consequential approach • To evaluate the consequences of promoting one product instead of
another
• To evaluate the consequences of applying certain policies
• To compare the environmental performance of two products that
would generate changes in the economy (LOOK AT MARKET CHANGE!!)
System boundaries: included phase of life cycle
Cradle-to-grave analysis
o 'Cradle-to-grave' assessment considers impacts at each stage of a product's life-cycle,
from the time natural resources are extracted from the ground and processed
through each subsequent stage of manufacturing, transportation, product use, and
ultimately, disposal.
Cradle-to-gate analysis
, o An assessment of a partial product life cycle from resource extraction (cradle) to the
factory gate
Temporal, geographical, technological scope
Temporal
Reference year (and data validity, e.g. not older than 10 years)
o Present, past, future, data range?
Consider time range
o E.g. when assessing a power plant, disposal will happen in 20/30 years
Temporal scope for impacts: GWP-20, GWP-100, GWP-500
Geographical
Different parts of LC happen in different regions world
Technological scope
Which technology mix
Should fit with temporal and geographical coverage
Level of detail LCA:
- Detailed according to ISO standards
- Simplified not fully according to ISO standards
EXAMPLE: Light bulb case
Goal definition What: To compare the relevant environmental impacts for 1000 hours lighting
per year with incandescent or fluorescent lamps in Dutch households
Why: For the Dutch government, in support of climate change policy (through
energy efficiency), to avoid burden shifting
For who: Executed by your environmental consultancy firm
Comparative assertation: No comparison disclosed to the public
Scope Attributional
In the near future, in NL, current technology
Cradle to grave
Impact categories: climate change, ecotoxicity (so level of sophistication/detail
is low)
Screening/simplified analysis (Only (electricity in) the use phase and (mercury
emissions in) waste phase of fluorescent lamp)
Function of the product system:
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