ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE TOOLS: How ceramic PCRs contribute to a better environment?

UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change Dr. Pere Fullana i Palmer Brussels, 26th November 2013

2 UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF)

• Life cycle perspective and assessment

• Life cycle standards universe

• Uses of EPDs

• UNESCO´s Chair Experience in ceramic PCRs

OUTLINE

Life cycle perspective implies adopting an integrated vision on the correlations between products and the environment

LIFE CYCLE PERSPECTIVE

3 UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF)

Source: EC-JRC, 2010. Making sustainable consumption & production a reality.

• Understanding a product as a system

• Different life cycle stages

• Different types of environmental impacts

Life cycle perspective helps decision making for real environmental improvement

- Responds to the problem but avoids creating a new problem

Ex. Biofuels and tortitas

- Addresses the challenge of the exponential growth of environmental impact because of both C and P

Ex. Increasing number of products (12% yearly)

Life Cycle Thinking

4 UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change

10:53

LCA part of the mainstreaming?

TIME magazine

"10 ideas changing the World right now" Una 100%

Organic cotton T-shirt → 10.000 litres of water, ink

Industrial ecologists → LCA

5

After his best sellers Emotional

Intelligence and Social Intelligence,

Daniel Goleman introduces the

concept of Ecological Inelligence, based

on life cycle thinking.

Gregory Norris gives a one hour lecture to

his Holiness, the Dalai Lama, about the

importance of LCA to change consumption

and production patterns to help for a better

future of our planet .

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) provides answers to questions such:

• Is it more appropriate to refurbish or to demolish and build again?

• Green roof or conventional roof?

• Which is the optimum thickness for an insulating material?

• Is it more appropriate to use wood flooring or ceramic tiles flooring?

• When would the investment for renewable energy installations pay off environmentally?

• Etc.

LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT IN THE CONSTRUCTION SECTOR

6 UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF)

Keep in mind that answers to these always depend on the specific case by case conditions, there are no universal solutions!

But there could be generalist methodologies to apply!!!

“Compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle” (ISO 14040).

LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT IN THE CONSTRUCTION SECTOR

7 UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF)

INPUTS

Raw materials

Energy

Raw materials extraction

Production

Use

End of life

OUTPUTS

Atmospheric emissions

Waste water

Solid waste

Co-products

Other waste

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

Global Warming Ozone layer depletion Acidification Eutrophication …

Distribution

Analized System

LIFE CYCLE STAGES

UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change

8

LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT IN THE CONSTRUCTION SECTOR

9 UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF)

Goal and scope definitions

Inventory analysis

Impact assessment

Inte

rpre

tati

on

LCA Framework Direct applications

• Product development and

improvement (ecodesign)

• Strategic planning

• Public policy making

• Marketing (environmental

labels)

• Others

LIFE CYCLE STANDARD UNIVERSE

10 UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF)

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

(ISO 14040-44; ILCD

Handbook)

Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) or type III ecolabelling

(ISO 14025; ISO 21930*)

Product Category Rules (PCR)

(ISO 14025; EN 15804*)

* Applicable only to building products

Verification (internal or external expert)

Carbon Footprint

(PAS 2050, ISO 14067, GHG PROTOCOL)

EC´s Product Environmental

Footprint

European

harmonization

initiative for

construction products

ECOPLATFORM

LIFE CYCLE STANDARD UNIVERSE: EPD

11 UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF)

Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) or

typo III ecolabel

(ISO 14025; ISO 21930)

USES OF EPD

12 UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF)

According to ISO 14025 the main objectives of EPDs are:

• To provide LCA-based information

• To assist informed comparisons between products (despite EPDs are not comparative assertions)

• To encourage environmental improvement

Initiatives to foster EPDs in the LCA of buildings include:

• Ökobau.dat (German EPDs)

• URBILCA and SOFIAS softwares (French, German, Spanish etc. EPDs)

www.urbilca-sudoe.eu/ www.sofiasproject.org/

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Building´s environmental assessment require a formidable amount of information from the supply chain. In these sense, EPDs:

• Offer a standardised way of providing this information

• Are being more and more used for this purpose by producers of construction products

However:

• The link with other environmental information product tools needs to be more consistent

• The use of this information in the LCA of buildings is in its early stages and requires an effort in ensuring the consistency in the calculation method and data formats

UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF)

CONCLUSIONS

14 UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF)

UNESCO CHAIR IN LIFE CYCLE AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Working on Life Cycle Management

Building capacity through education and research

Providing an international approach

The UNESCO Chair (ESCI-UPF), together with its spin-off company CYCLUS, has actively contributed to the development of: PCRs for: EPD programmes by:

- Spanish clay construction products (Hispalyt) - CAATEEB - Spanish ceramic tiles (ASCER) - AENOR A software tool, which complies with programmes and PCRs, in order to deliver comparable and cost-effective EPDs for tiles

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ITC (Ceramics Technologycal Institute) mission is to lead the innovation processes in technology and design in the Spanish ceramic sector.

OUR STRONG PARTNERSHIP

“Instituto de Tecnología Cerámica” “Association of Ceramic Tile Manufacturers of Spain”

ASCER is an organization that provides support, defends and promotes the general and common interests of the ceramic industry.

16 UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF)

Wanting more information???

http://www.construction21.eu/

MOLTES GRÀCIES – THANKS A LOT FOR YOUR ATTENTION!!!

17 UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change

pere.fullana@esci.upf.edu