Product Environmental Footprint (PEF)

- status update -

Michele Galatola

Product Team Leader

Sustainable Production, Products & Consumption European Commission - DG Environment

Where do we come from?

2003 The European Commission declares that LCA is the best tool available to assess the environmental performance of products

2005-10 The European Commission decides to invest important resources in Research related to LCA. Important projects like CALCAS, PROSUITE, LCAtogo, FORWAST and many others are funded. The total budget invested for research tasks directly related to LCA (environmental, social and economic LCA) is estimated at about 50 million €

2010 The European Commission (JRC) published the ILCD handbook that soon becomes a reference for most LCA practitioners worldwide

2010 The European Council (where Head of States are sitting) asks the European Commission to develop a harmonise method for the assessment of the environmental performance of products, services and organisations.

2011 The excessive flexibility and unclear requirements included in ISO standards 14040-44 is acknowledged as a limiting factor for a wider use of LCA in policy making. The European Commission decides to develop PEF/OEF methods

The PEF and OEF methods are adopted by the European Commission and published on the Official Journal. They become the recommended method to calculate and communicate the environmental performance of products, services and organisations. A pilot phase (2013-2016) is launched in preparation of a possible policy proposal

2013

2012 The European Commission initiates the work on interoperability of LCA databases for better use of LCA in policy making

The Circular Economy Action Plan (the main political document of the current Commission) is built around life cycle thinking and refers to EF methods several times 2015

Main limitations existing in 2011

Too many competing LCA-based standards, none of them could be really used in EU policy making due methodological requirements that were too flexible, weak or even missing.

Proliferation of PCRs, sometime with conflicting requirements and weak development processes

The concepts of benchmark and classes of performance are not sufficiently addressed

Lack of reliable secondary LCI data

Lack of clear guidance on what and how to communicate in B2B and B2C settings

Lack of tailored verification approaches

Batteries and accumulators

Decorative paints

Hot & cold water pipe systems

Liquid household detergents

IT equipment

Metal sheets

Non-leather shoes

Photovoltaic electricity generation

Stationary

Intermediate paper products

T-shirts

Uninterrupted power supplies

1st wave of pilots 2nd wave of pilots

Retailer sector

Copper sector

Leather

Thermal insulation

Beer

Coffee

Fish

Dairy products

Feed

Meat

Pet food

Olive oil

Pasta

Wine

Packed water

EF pilot phase

Europe: 86.2%

120 applications: 22.5% were selected = 27 pilots

Number of pilot meetings: 1081

Participants (27 pilots):1534 individual stakeholders (4244 participations)

Public Administrations: AT, BE, CZ, DE, DK, EL, ES, FI, FR,HR, IT, NL, PL, PT, SE, SL, UK; AU, BR, CA, CH, CR, EC, JM, JP, KR, NI, NZ, SV, TN, USA

The EU market is behind the pilots: 73% of pilots have the majority of industry in the lead

Many are watching 129 875 unique visitors to the SMGP sites since kick-off The web-commenting tool had 42,390 views Average nr of stakeholders registering/day: 5

283 leading stakeholders in 26 pilots

Stakeholders in the world ( = leading stakeholders)

S. America: 2.6%

N. America: 5.9%

Africa: 0.13%

Asia: 3.6%

Oceania: 0.7%

+ PEF is THE news in the scientific community: we get invited to all major international events

Average stakeholders/pilot: 157 Share of non-EU stakeholders: 13.8%

Where are we standing today?

11/13

M03 1st physical consultation

End of pilots End of pilots

Kick-off 1st wave

1st draft PEFCR ready M10

Approval of scope and representative product by SC Start screening studies

M05

2nd draft of PEFCR ready M13

12/16

06/14 Kick-off 2nd wave

M09 Send screening for quick check to EC & Helpdesk

Virtual consultation M11

Approval of 2nd draft PEFCR by SC M14

Start of supporting studies M15

2nd consultation (physical and virtual) M19

External review M22

Final PEFCR ready M25

Approval of final PEFCR by SC M26

Release of final PEFCR M27

M13

M17

M18

2nd consultation (August – October 2016)

External review: October – November 2016

: 21st December 2016

: Autumn 2017

06-09/17

All Pilots closed the final consultation End of the pilot phase: delay of final adoption of 6-9 months

Climate change

Ozone depletion Eco-

toxicity

Human toxicity

Particu-late

matter Radiation

Acidifi-cation Eutro-

phication

Resource depletion

Land transfor-mation

Water depletion

To calculate the environmental footprint: What does that mean?

Lots of modelling choices

LC model

Climate change

Ozone depletion

Eco-toxicity

Particu-late

matter

Radiation

Eutro-phication

Resource depletion

Land transfor-mation

Water depletion

Human toxicity

Acidifi-cation

Product average LC model with impact assessment results

Heavy Duty Liquid Laundry Detergents (HDLLD)

Climate change

Ozone depletion

Eco-toxicity

Human toxicity

Particu-late

matter

Radiation

Acidifi-cation

Eutro-phication

Resource depletion

Land transfor-mation

Water depletion

Relevant environmental impacts?

Impact category Contribution (%) Climate change 21.5 Ozone depletion 3.0 Human toxicity - cancer effects 1.3

Human toxicity - non-cancer effects 4.9

Particulate matter 0.1 Ionizing radiation HH 0.5 Photochemical ozone formation 2.4

Acidification 18.5 Eutrophication - terrestrial 1.0 Eutrophication - freshwater 1.0 Eutrophication - marine 0.1 Ecotoxicity - freshwater 0.1 Land use 14.3 Resource depletion - water 18.6 Resource depletion – mineral, fossil 12.7

Most relevant impact categories

The most relevant impact categories are those that cumulatively contribute at least to 80% of the total impact

Climate change

Ozone depletion

Eco-toxicity

Human toxicity

Particu-late

matter

Radiation

Acidifi-cation

Eutro-phication

Resource depletion

Land transfor-mation

Water depletion

Relevant stages and processes? Chemical ingredients sources and manufacturing

Packaging raw materials sourcing and manufacturing

Transport to processing plant Transport to processing plant

Waste water treatment

Product use

Process Contribution (%) Process A 8.9

Process B 61.4

Process C 23.4

Process D 2.8

Process E 1.5

Process F 0.9

Other processes 0.9

Most relevant processes

The most relevant processes are those that cumulatively contribute at least to 80% of the impact for any of the most relevant impact categories

Inventory flow Substance 1 Substance 2 Substance 3 Substance 4 Substance 5 Total Process A 249 85 6 45 5 390 Process B 1100 600 500 450 50 2700 Process C 300 250 20 30 430 1030 Process D 60 30 20 10 5 125 Process E 64 1 1 1 1 68 Process F 15 10 8 5 3 41 Other processes 15 10 8 5 3 41 Total 1803 986 563 546 497 4395

Inventory flow Substance 1 Substance 2 Substance 3 Substance 4 Substance 5 Total Process A 64% 22% 2% 12% 1% 100% Process B 41% 22% 19% 17% 2% 100% Process C 29% 24% 2% 3% 42% 100% Process D 48% 24% 16% 8% 4% 100% Process E 94% 1% 1% 1% 1% 100% Process F 37% 24% 20% 12% 7% 100% Other processes 37% 24% 20% 12% 7% 100%

Most relevant elementary flows

EF in practice

A PEFCR will make available, for each Product Group, the following information: • The most relevant impact category • The most relevant life cycle stages • The most relevant processes • The most relevant elementary flows • The environmental profile of the average product sold in EU (benchmark) • Classes of environmental performance (optional)

SME tool

• Pilot specific • Testing: T-shirt, beer,

leather, olive oil • Open source software

5. Communicate based on the PEF profile

Supporting study

Possible to compare performance

Not possible to compare performance

Report

EF (quasi)reality-check with few months to go

Initial situation Situation after pilot phase

LCA standards too flexible to guarantee reproducibility and comparability of results

A single method at EU level (published in the OJEU), much stricter in terms of requirements, leading to results more reproducible and comparable

Proliferation of PCRs often dealing with similar or identical products

The enforcement of the representativity rules guarantees the existence of only 1 set of rules for each product group

Benchmarks not existing Benchmarks developed for about 20 product groups

Lack of high quality free secondary data

(see next slide)

Labelling and other communication activities not always focused on the most relevant issues

Materiality principle fully implemented

LCI data tenders

• Energy and transport All datasets available at http://lcdn.thinkstep.com/Node/

• Chemicals • Chemicals for paints Evaluation completed, contracts in preparation • Metals & minerals These datasets should become available in late-March 2017 • Feed • Food & agriculture

• Packaging Deadline to apply was 4 October – datasets by early-April 2017 • Textile Deadline to apply was 4 October – datasets by early-April 2017 • Incineration Deadline to apply is 19 October – datasets by mid-April 2017

• Other EoL processes • Recycling • Plastics Datasets available around mid-Mayl 2017 • Electrical and electronics • Other (leftover)

High quality free secondary datasets

What PEF cannot deliver

In the short term

Toxicity-related impacts require further work (improvements expected in 2018

Classes of performance (but the traffic light system is immediately implementable)

Biodiversity as an “impact category” (but 6 out of the 15 impact categories used includes effects on biodiversity)

Toxicity-related impacts require further work (improvements expected in 2018

Classes of performance (but the traffic light system is immediately implementable)

Biodiversity as an “impact category” (but 6 out of the 15 impact categories used includes effects on biodiversity)

Never

Social information

Consequential information (analysis of large scale policy scenarios)

Outlook

EC Evaluation

Peer review

Policy discussion

2017 2018

Transition phase (2018-2020)

• Monitoring the voluntary implementation of the developed PEFCRs/OEFSRs

• Development of a (limited) number of new PEFCRs/OEFSRs • Methodological improvements

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/smgp/ https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/wikis/display/EUENVFP/

env-environmental-footprint@ec.europa.eu

Twitter: @EU_EnvFootprint