Life Cycle Analysis and
Resource Management
Dr. Forbes McDougall
Procter & Gamble
UK
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Presentation aims:
1) Examine the use of LCA within an overall environmental
management framework to assess the environmental impact
of packaging options and waste management systems
2) Look at how LCA can be applied to packaging, products
and waste management
3) Use LCA to help assess the cost effectiveness of specific
environmental initiatives
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Sustainability is :
A balance between the needs of the Environment, the
Economy and Society
SUSTAINABILITY
Environmentally
effective
Economically
affordable
Socially
acceptable
An environmental management
framework
OBJECTIVE
Economically (and technically) Feasible,
Socially acceptable,
Environmental Management
towards Sustainability
An environmental management
framework
1. Ensure Human and
Environmental Safety
2. Ensure Regulatory
Compliance
OBJECTIVE
Economically (and technically) Feasible,
Socially acceptable,
Environmental Management
towards Sustainability
3. Ensure Efficient
4. Ensure Social Concerns
Resource Use and
are Addressed
Waste Management
An environmental management
framework
Regulatory Compliance
Safety
• Human Health Risk Assessment
• Ecological Risk Assessment
• Manufacturing site mgmt.. systems auditing
• Manufacturing site wastes reporting
• Material consumption reporting
• New chemicals testing and registration
• Product & packaging classification & labeling
OBJECTIVE
Economically (and technically) Feasible,
Socially acceptable,
Environmental Management
• Economic analysis
towards Sustainability
• Product & process LCA
• Eco-design
• Disposal company auditing
• Material consumption monitoring and reduction
• Manufacturing site mgmt. systems auditing
• Manufacturing site environmental auditing
• Auditing major & new suppliers
Resource Use and
Waste Management
• Understand & anticipate
• Interact
Addressing Social Concerns
An environmental management
framework
Regulatory Compliance
Safety
•
•
•
•
•
• Human Health Risk Assessment
• Ecological Risk Assessment
Manufacturing site mgmt.. systems auditing
Manufacturing site wastes reporting
Material consumption reporting
New chemicals testing and registration
Product & packaging classification & labeling
OBJECTIVE
Economically (and technically) Feasible,
Socially acceptable,
Environmental Management
towards Sustainability
• Economic analysis
• Product & process LCA
• Eco-design
• Disposal company auditing
• Material consumption monitoring and reduction
• Manufacturing site mgmt. systems auditing
• Manufacturing site environmental auditing
• Auditing major & new suppliers
Resource Use and
Waste Management
• Understand & anticipate
• Interact
Addressing Social Concerns
Data
Organisation
DECISION MAKING
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) within the
overall environmental management
framework
RESOURCE USE AND WASTE MANAGEMENT
•Economic analysis
•Product and process LCA
•Eco-design
•Disposal company auditing
•Material consumption monitoring and reduction
•Manufacturing site management systems auditing
•Auditing major & new suppliers
Phases of LCA (taken from ISO 14040)
Life Cycle Assessment framework
Goal
& scope
definition
Inventory
Analysis
Impact
Assessment
Direct applications :
Interpretation
• Product development
and improvement.
• Strategic planning.
• Public policy making.
• Marketing.
• Other.
- included in
- not
study
an LCI study
included in an LCI
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Decreasing objectivity and reliability
across a LCA
Objectivity
.
Inventory
results
Impact
potential
e.g. GWP
indicator
Impact
potential
e.g. toxicity
indicator
Weighting
“scores”
The Impact Assessment phase of LCA:
• is a simple indicator system
• has no direct linkage to environmental effects or significance
• often uses subjective judgments and scores
• is not easy to use for comparisons
What is a Life Cycle Inventory?
The first two stages of a full Life Cycle Assessment
• Goal definition
• Inventory analysis
Together constitute the process of Life Cycle Inventory
What does a LCI do?
LCI is a tool for predicting the environmental burdens associated
with particular products or services
A LCI is an inventory of all the systems :
• Inputs (in terms of resources, including energy)
• Outputs (in terms of emissions to air water and land)
LCI can therefore identify opportunities to optimize life cycles
by:
• Reducing resource use
• Producing fewer emissions
System boundary for a Life Cycle
Inventory
Raw Material Sourcing
Processing
INPUTS
OUTPUTS
Manufacture
Energy
Water
Raw Materials
Distribution
Use
Post consumer Disposal
Airborne emissions
Waterborne emissions
Solid Waste
Life Cycle of a Product
Raw Material extraction
Manufacture
Distribution
Use
Waste management
LCI BOUNDARY
Life Cycle of Solid Waste
PRODUCTS
Raw Material extraction
Manufacture
Distribution
Use
Waste management
LCA BOUNDARY
Practical Environment Optimisation
PRODUCTS
Raw Material extraction
Manufacture
LCA for
Manufacturers
Distribution
Use
Waste management
LCA for Waste Managers
Detergent LCI: results
Overall profile for the UK (compact detergent)
100.0
90.0
80.0
70.0
60.0
50.0
40.0
30.0
20.0
10.0
0.0
Supply
Consumer
Manufacturing
WWTP
Packaging
BOD
Solid waste
CO2
Energy
Detergent LCI: interpretation of results
• > 70% of energy consumption occurs at consumer phase,
due to heating of water.
• CO2 emissions are mainly energy related.
• > 98% of the BOD emissions occur at the WWTP, this
represents less than 8% of total BOD present in product
(weighted average).
• Solid waste represents ashes from energy combustion,
packaging and sludge generation.
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Nappy LCA: results
UK Environment Agency study May 2005
Concluded:
“there was no significant difference between any of the
environmental impacts – that is, overall no system
clearly had a better or worse environmental
performance.”
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Sustainable Waste Management
Needs to be
• Environmentally effective
• Economically affordable
• Socially acceptable
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A Waste Management Hierarchy
A hierarchy lists options in order of “preference”
Reuse
Reduce
Materials Recovery
Energy Recovery
Landfill/ Incineration
(without Energy Recovery)
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Waste Hierarchy
Has limitations
• Has no measurable scientific basis
• Cannot consider combinations of treatment technologies
• Does not address cost issues
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Solid Waste Management
Sustainable Systems can be engineered by :
• Accepting the concept of an integrated approach to solid
waste management
• Using a Life Cycle Assessment tool (computer model) to
optimise the integrated waste management system
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Integrated Waste Management (IWM)
The Concept
IWM :
• Takes an overall approach and manages waste in an
environmentally effective and economically affordable way
• Involves the use of a range of different treatment options at
a local level
• Considers the entire solid waste stream
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Integrated Waste Management (IWM)
Includes :
BIOLOGICAL
TREATMENT
MATERIALS
RECYCLING
COLLECTION
&
SORTING
THERMAL
TREATMENT
LANDFILL
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IWM Systems
How can we plan systems that are environmentally and
economically sustainable ?
• Overall environmental burdens
(Overall economic cost)
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool makes this possible
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Integrated Waste Management
A Life Cycle Assessment
INPUTS
Waste
BIOLOGICAL
TREATMENT
MATERIALS
RECYCLING
OUTPUTS
Air
Emissions
Energy
Other
Materials
Money
Water
Emissions
COLLECTION
&
SORTING
THERMAL
TREATMENT
LANDFILL
Secondary
Materials
Compost
PRODUCTS
Useful
Energy
Residual
Landfill
Material
Environmental Effectiveness
PRODUCTS
Raw material
sourcing
PRODUCTS
Raw material
sourcing
Manufacture
Manufacture
Distribution
Distribution
Retail
Retail
USE
Waste
Management
IWM
INTEGRATED WASTE
MANAGEMENT
USE
Waste
Management
SEGREGATED WASTE
MANAGEMENT
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Solid Waste
A Life Cycle Model
LCA originally used to compare products/packaging from
“cradle to grave”
A Life Cycle model for solid waste calculates:
•
•
•
•
total energy consumption
emissions to air and water
final solid waste
(overall economic costs)
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Life Cycle Models
Results
• Net energy consumption
• Air emissions
• Water emissions
• Landfill volume (residual)
• Recovered materials
• Compost
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From Life Cycle Model results to
sustainability
Environmental sustainability
•
•
•
•
more useful products
less emissions
less final inert waste
less energy consumed
(Economic sustainability)
• less money to pay for the system
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Strategy development
Comparisons using Life Cycle model results
Using LCA to help assess the cost effectiveness of specific
environmental initiatives
• Use existing waste management strategy as “Baseline”, model
entire system including all relevant costs
• Compare the performance of different Integrated Waste
Management strategies
• Choose optimum Integrated Waste Management strategy based
on needs of local environment, economy and population
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How to choose between options ?
• Single criterion - where there is a single over-riding
concern (e.g. lack of landfill space)
• Multiple criteria - where more than one issue is important
(e.g. energy consumption and air emissions)
• “Less is better” - where one option is lower in all categories
• Impact analysis - combine categories that contribute to the
same effect such as global warming
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LCA
Conclusions
• IWM concept and LCA tools can help us move towards
affordable environmental sustainability
• Using LCA is better than other arbitrary approaches
• More and higher quality data are needed, to make better
decisions
• A variety of waste management systems are required to
meet local needs
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Our contribution
English version - combined sales of over 10,000 copies
Also available in Spanish, Chinese and Japanese
Life Cycle models for Municipal Solid Waste
now produced by UK EA, US EPA, and in Germany,
Austria, Netherlands, France, Portugal, Australia ……
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