Jnsson, Karin. (1998). Defining and Comparing Environmental Impacts. In N. Jacobsson, & K.

Jnsson, Feasibility Study of Equivalence of Eco-labelling Criteria. Lund:IIIEE. (pp. 1320, 22)

Defining and Comparing Environmental Impacts

. Defining Environmental Impacts Life-Cycle Impact Assessment is based on a functional unit approach, where potential environmental impacts are identified and allocated to a unit representing the function of the system under study. This distinguishes LCIA from most other impact assessment tools, such as environmental impact assessment, since the latter employ a site-specific approach in order to identify actual or predicted impacts and do not perform any allocation based on function. According to established Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) practice, impact assessment is divided into the three components classification, characterisation and valuation.1 The definition of environmental impacts is related to the classification and characterisation. Classification connects the different inputs and outputs of the studied system with the expected environmental impacts. In the characterisation step, the relative contributions of each input and output to the relevant impact categories are assessed and are finally aggregated to a total for each impact category. According to the Nordic Guidelines on Life-Cycle Assessment, classification as well as characterisation should be based on a scientific analysis of the environmental processes involved.2 Still, it was acknowledged already by the Nordic Guidelines that the choice of which environmental impacts and assessment methods to consider in the first place is in itself highly subjective. Support for this finding can also be found in the final draft version of the ISO standard 14040, covering the principles and framework of LCA.3 The more recent report of SETACs North American Work Group on LCIA goes even further by saying that a major advance in the state-of-the-art is recognising that subjective judgements and simplifying assumptions are used extensively in classification and characterisation.4 Environmental impacts have to be defined somewhere along the cause-effect chain of the environmental intervention.5 The effects in the beginning of the cause-effect chain are generally chemical or physical, while the effects that occur later in the chain are more often of a biological nature. Environmental impacts are mostly defined early in the cause-effect chain, which is possibly explained by the fact that the uncertainty becomes higher along the chain. The possibility to assess the impacts connected to certain environmental interventions differs a lot depending on the type of interventions and impacts involved.6 Acidification and eutrophication for example, are relatively well known and documented environmental problems. In contrast, the environmental impacts connected to the steadily growing number of new chemicals introduced on the market are at present more or less impossible to predict.

1 ISO/FDIS 14040, 1997, Environmental Management-Life Cycle Assessment-Principles and Framework, p 8.

2 3 4 5 6

Nordic Council of Ministers, 1995,Nordic Guidelines on Life-Cycle Assessment, p 72. ISO/FDIS 14040, 1997, Environmental Management-Life Cycle Assessment-Principles and Framework, p 8. SETAC, 1997, Life-Cycle Impact Assessment: The State-of-the Art, p 52. Gran Finnveden, 1996, Valuation Methods within the Framework of Life Cycle Assessment, p 16. ibid., p 19.

In the ideal case, a known and homogenous environmental process or mechanism can be used to connect the inventory data to a certain impact category.7 Global warming is such a case, where universally applicable equivalency factors for various greenhouse gases can be established based on a homogenous and scientific mechanism. Most of the impact categories can not be defined based on a purely scientific mechanism though, due to numerous reasons. The reason might be that we currently lack the knowledge to identify such a mechanism, the level of complexity might be too high, or it might not be relevant to describe the issue in those terms. Equivalency factors to be used in characterisation have thus only been developed for a few impact categories, mainly global, such as global warming and ozone depletion.8 The relevance of category indicators tend to diminish, while the subjective element increases, as environmental processes become more transient and/or dependent on local circumstances.9 The conclusion is that subjective elements have to be accepted as an inherent part of the definition and description of environmental impacts, in order not to severely limit the possible scope of impact assessment. As a part of the work towards establishing a standardised methodology on Impact Assessment, a preliminary default list of impact categories has been presented by SETAC-Europe (see Table 1).10 It is important to note that this list has not been presented as a definite or exhausted list. It should also be noted that SETACs North American work group on impact assessment did not, as opposed to their European counterpart, envision such a default list of impact categories in their report. In SETAC-Europes list a categorisation of the impacts into local, regional, continental, and global is made, based on the reach of the underlying environmental processes. The list also corresponds to the list preliminary adopted by ISO (Environmental Management-Life Cycle Assessment-Life Cycle Impact Assessment, ISO/CD 14042), with the exception that the ISO list does not consider the local impacts odour, noise, radiation, and casualties.11

7 8 9

SETAC, 1997, Life-Cycle Impact Assessment: The State-of-the Art, p 57f. Erwin Lindeijer, 1995, Valuation in LCA, http.//www.ivambv.uva.nl/ivam/product/valdraft.html SETAC, 1997, Life-Cycle Impact Assessment: The State-of-the Art, p 62. SETAC, 1996, Towards a Methodology for Life Cycle Assessment, p 19.

10 11

European Environment Agency, Life Cycle Assessment, http://www.eea.dk/Projects/EnvMaST/lca/tab352.htm (971202)

Table 1. Life-Cycle Impact Assessment Impact Categories

A. Input related categories 1. abiotic resources 2. biotic resources 3. land B. Output related categories 4. global warming 5. depletion of stratospheric ozone 6. human toxicological impacts 7. ecotoxicological impacts 8. photo-oxidant formation 9. acidification 10. eutrophication 11. odour 12. noise 13. radiation 14. casualties

global global local global global global/continental/regional/local global/continental/regional/local continental/regional/local continental/regional/local continental/regional/local local local regional/local local

(SETAC-Europe, 1996, Towards a Methodology for Life Cycle Impact Assessment, p 19.)

The division of environmental impacts into the categories ranging from local to global is important in defining and comparing the impacts. Different resources experience different levels of scarcity in different locations. For emissions, spatial differences occur due to the effects of transportation of the emissions, the sensitivity of the surrounding environment, and the existing background levels of the emitted substances.12 Different illustrations of the importance of taking the spatial differences into consideration when assessing the significance of environmental impacts can be made by referring to the cases of acidification, and eutrophication. In the case of acidification, emissions of NOx and SO2 to soil and water leads to a degradation of ecosystems. The problem of acidification varies from region to region, due to differences in the buffer capacity of soils. Acidification is mainly a problem in Europe, China, and the eastern parts of the U.S., while it is a potential problem also in Venezuela, Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia.13 It is important to note though, that emissions of NOx and SO2 can be transported over long distances before they are finally deposited. Even if the emission site is not situated in an area where acidification is likely to be a problem, the place of deposition might be. Eutrophication takes place as a consequence of releases of nitrogen and phosphor to soil and water, where the long-term result might be that the intervention into the nutrient balance will damage the affected ecosystem.14 In the Netherlands, the intensive agriculture has led to a situation where the relative loads of nitrogen and phosphor are already very high. Any additional releases of nitrogen and phosphor must therefore be seen as very serious. In New Zealand significant amounts of nitrogen and phosphor are released to the soil in connection with sheepbreeding. In contrast to the Dutch case, this fact hardly contributes to eutrophication since the application of nitrogen and phosphor in New Zealand is respectively 10 to 100 times lower than in the Netherlands.

12 13 14

SETAC, 1994, Integrating Impact Assessment into LCA, p 19. SETAC, 1994, Integrating Impact Assessment into LCA, p 93. ibid.

The local differences which affect the severity of environmental interventions are not only related to natural conditions, but also to differences in technology structures, etc. In areas where phosphate from laundry detergents is removed in the waste water treatment plants, the eutrophication aspect will naturally be completely different as compared to areas where such treatment is not conducted. An assessment of the environmental impacts connected to the production, use, and disposal of a product, needs thus to take into consideration that the related interventions will be spread over different locations with different environmental characteristics. Currently though, Life-Cycle Impact Assessment is limited in the sense that it is most often not considered feasible to include local information in the analysis.15 The issue of whether local information about e.g. background levels is to be included, is not only a practical one though. It is for instance possible to raise the argument that LCIA should be considered mainly as a preventative tool.16 Thus, an emission could be considered undesirable also when it doesnt bring concentration levels above threshold values, since it will still narrow the possibility for further emitting activities in the area. Life Cycle Stressor-Effects Assessment (LCSEA) is a new methodology which has been developed in order to overcome some of the limitations connected to Life Cycle Impact Assessment.17 The strengths of this methodology is that it seeks to include relevant spatial and temporal detail into the environmental assessment of products by integrating Life Cycle Impact Assessment with Environmental Impact Assessment techniques. This is done by focusing on the relevant stressor-effects (or cause-effects) networks as the basis for the LCA. The identification of these networks and the impact characterisation is done prior to the introduction of the functional unit and allocation, as opposed to the case in LCIA, in order to incorporate spatial and temporal information specific for the studied system. In practice, LCSEA will obviously be hampered by the lack of data and knowledge concerning site-specific processes.18 It is important to note that even though LCSEA may introduce a way around some of the limitations of LCIA, it does not provide any new means of scientifically defining and comparing environmental impacts. In conjunction with the work on preparing a framework for LCSEA, it has been acknowledged that equivalency factors developed for local and regional effects will be representative only for a specific stressor-effect network connected to a specific activity at a site.19 These equivalency factors are not developed to facilitate a comparison between different stressor-effects networks, since such a procedure will have to rely on a subjective weighting process.20 Comparing Environmental Impacts It should be recognised at the outset that it will be impossible to develop an entirely objective method for impact assessment valuation.
(SETAC, 1992, A Conceptual Framework for Life-Cycle Impact Assessment, p 87.)

15 16 17 18 19

SETAC, 1994, Integrating Impact Assessment into LCA, p 20. SETAC, 1996, Towards a Methodology for Life Cycle Assessment, p 23. ISO/CD 14042, 1997, Environmental Management-Life Cycle Assessment-Life Cycle Impact Assessment, p 17. SETAC-Europe News (1998):1, ISO Impact Document Process Sparks Heated Debate, p 14.

Working Draft prepared for ISO Task Group on Type III Labelling, 1997, Life-Cycle Stressor-Effects Assessment: A Framework for Integrating Life-Cycle Impact Assessment with Environmental Assessment Techniques, p 26.
20

ibid., p 27.

Valuation, the third and last, component of impact assessment, is the step in which the different environmental impacts of the system under study are weighted against each other.21 An attempt to perform a scientific weighting of the impacts would generally be based on criteria such as the probability of harm caused by the impact, level of harm, the reversibility of harm, the substitutability of harmed object, and the geographical range of harm.22 A common opinion though is that an assessment of environmental significance of different impacts will inherently be based on social and economic values and perceptions.23 Since values and perceptions of environmental problems differs between different regions, as well as the actual environmental conditions, valuation is therefore likely to also differ from area to area.24 Life-Cycle Impact Assessment in general, and valuation specifically, is an area under development, where little consensus has been reached so far. Concerning valuation, it is not expected that consensus will ever be reached due to the subjectivity inherently involved in the weighting of different environmental impacts.25 It would thus not be possible to construct a general set of weighting principles for environmental impacts that would be accepted globally. The Dutch TNO Study Centre for Environmental Research has in a study compared different weightings associated with a sample of valuation methods.26 The result showed that the valuation methods tend to produce very different sets of weights for the different environmental impact categories. The weight given to eutrophication, relative to the dispersion of toxic substances, varied by a factor of 13, and the weight given to climate change varied by a factor of 65. Different valuation methods do most often not explicitly discuss the different values that have been taken as standpoints in those methods.27 It can thus be difficult to assess which set of values that comes with the choice of a specific valuation method. Valuation methods can mainly be divided into the three groups panel methods, monetarisation methods, and distance-to-target methods.28 The use of the different valuation methods reflects in itself different existing opinions regarding who should set the environmental priorities in the society; experts, the public, the market, or the politicians. Panel methods In panel methods, the weighting of different environmental impacts is conducted by asking a group of people about their preferences.29 The panel may consist of environmental experts, a general sample of the population, international bodies, etc. The answers can be given either in a quantitative or qualitative way. It has been learnt from different studies of panel methods that the results achieved depend to a large extent on the way the questions are formulated.30 Examples of panel methods are the Delphi technique developed by Landbank in the UK, and the Panel questionnaire developed by IVAM Environmental Research in the Netherlands.

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Nordic Council of Ministers, 1995,Nordic Guidelines on Life-Cycle Assessment, p 73. Henrik Wenzel, 1994, Structure of valuation step in LCA, p 160. SETAC, 1993, Guidelines for Life-Cycle Assessment: A Code of Practice, p 26. Nordic Council of Ministers, 1995,Nordic Guidelines on Life-Cycle Assessment, p 143. ibid., p 149. ENDS Report 231, 1994, The Elusive Consensus on Life cycle Assessment, p 21. Gran Finnveden, 1996, Valuation Methods within the Framework of Life Cycle Assessment, p 13. ibid., p 21. Gran Finnveden, 1996, Valuation Methods within the Framework of Life Cycle Assessment, p 23. ibid., p 38.

Monetarisation methods By using monetarisation methods, an attempt is made to put a monetary value on different environmental impacts. Monetarisation methods are most often based on the Willingness-ToPay/Accept approach (WTP/WTA), where the individuals or the societys willingness to pay for the conservation of natural resources or the avoidance of environmental damages is assessed and used as a basis for weighting of different environmental impacts. In order to identify WTP/WTA, monetarisation methods can either use contingent valuation, where people are directly asked to reveal their preferences in monetary terms, or indirectly assess the preferences through different approaches such as hedonic pricing, where an estimate is made concerning how much of the differences in property values can be explained by differences in environmental conditions. Examples of monetarisation methods are EPS and the Tellus method. The EPS, Environmental Priority Strategies, method was developed by the Swedish Environmental Research Institute and is based on estimations of societys Willingness-To-Pay to restore the environment. In the Tellus method, developed by the Tellus Institute in the United States, the weighting is instead based on an assessment of the costs associated with meeting relevant policy targets. Distance to target methods A third type of valuation methods conducts the weighting of environmental impacts in relation to different types of environmental targets.31 The targets addressed by the distance-to-target methods could either be of a political or a scientific nature. One problem with using political targets might be the difficulty of finding compatible targets for all relevant environmental impacts.32 The scientific relevance of political targets is also very limited, even though political targets are also likely to be based on the same type of previously mentioned criteria that would guide scientific weighting of environmental impacts.33 Political targets are naturally delimited due to the lack of understanding of scientific findings among political actors, and the general shortcomings of the political decision making process. Further, political targets relate to politically defined areas. These areas are seldom homogenous in terms of environmental conditions, and hence the targets are not likely to be relevant for the entire area from a scientific point of view.34 Relating the targets to some kind of scientific sustainability levels is difficult and probably even impossible.35 At least, the common opinion is that also scientific sustainability targets is to a large extent coloured by political values, due to the lack of consensus on the meaning of sustainable development.36 The type of targets that could be claimed to be the most scientific are targets based on so called No Observable Effect Levels (NOEL).37 NOEL is the level up to which the concentration of a substance can increase without leading to any observable adverse effects. Even though labelling activities as being with or without observable effects could be considered as a fairly unambiguous task, it still involves some elements of subjectivity. The initial choice of which effects to observe

31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Gran Finnveden, 1996, Valuation Methods within the Framework of Life Cycle Assessment, p 28. ibid., p 35. IW-HSG, 1996, Developments in LCA Valuation, p 96. ibid., p 93. Gran Finnveden, 1996, Valuation Methods within the Framework of Life Cycle Assessment, p 35. SETAC, 1996, Towards a Methodology for Life Cycle Assessment, p 81. IW-HSG, 1996, Developments in LCA Valuation, p 86.

is still value based. The problem with using NOEL as target levels, is that the information provided by these levels are most often too limited to be useful in valuation.38 The reason is that sustainable levels will most often be considered to be higher than the No Observable Effect Levels, as certain adverse effects are acceptable also under the sustainability criterion. Examples of existing methods are the Swiss Critical Volumes, Swiss Eco-points (the Ecoscarcity method), and Eco-indicator 95. The Swiss Critical Volume methods measures the media volume that is needed to dilute the emission to a level in line with the regulatory standards. The values for the emissions are finally added to a final score for the total critical volume of each media. Swiss Eco-points gives a weight to the emissions as the actual emission within the area as a proportion of the maximum load accepted within the policy targets. Both Swiss Critical Volumes and Swiss Eco-points have been developed by the Swiss Environment Ministry, BUWAL. Eco-indicator 95 only takes into consideration effects that damage human health and ecosystems on a European level.39 The weighting is done based on the distance between current and scientific target levels for an effect. Eco-indicator 95 was developed by two Dutch consultant firms. Conclusions . References ed. Barnthouse, L. et al. 1997. Life-Cycle Impact Assessment: The State-of-the-Art. SETAC-North America: Pensacola. Braunschweig, A., Ruth Frster, Patrick Hofstetter, and Ruedi Mller-Wenk.1996. Developments in LCA Valuation. IW-Diskussionsbeitrag 32. Institut fr Wirtschaft und kologie: St Gallen. ed. Consoli et al. 1993. Guidelines for Life-Cycle Assessment: A Code of Practice. SETAC. ENDS Report 231. April 1994. The Elusive Consensus on Life Cycle Assessment. 20-22.

European Environment Agency. Life Cycle Assessment. http://www.eea.dk/Projects/EnvMaST/lca/tab352.htm (2 Dec. 1997).

Finnveden, Gran. 1996. Valuation Methods within the Framework of Life Cycle Assessment. IVL Report B 1231. Institutet fr Vatten- och Luftvrdsforskning (Swedish Environmental Research Institute): Stockholm. ISO/FDIS 14040. 1997. Environmental Management - Life Cycle Assessment - Principles and Framework. International Organisation for Standardisation: Genve. ISO/CD 14042. 1997. Environmental Management - Life Cycle Assessment - Life Cycle Impact Assessment. International Organisation for Standardisation: Genve. NOH Report 9523. 1995. The Eco-indicator 95. National reuse of Waste Research Programme: the Netherlands. Nordic Council of Ministers. 1995. Nordic Guidelines on Life-Cycle Assessment. Nord 1995:20. Copenhagen. Scientific Certification Systems (SCS), Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL), and Soil and Water, Ltd. 1997. Life-Cycle Stressor-Effects Assessment (LCSEA): A Framework for Integrating Life-

38 39

ibid., p 93. NOH Report 9523, 1995, The Eco-indicator 95, p 3.

Cycle Impact Assessment with Environmental Assessment Techniques. Working Draft prepared for Distribution to ISO TC207/SC3/TG3-Task Group on Type III Labelling. SETAC. 1992. A Conceptual Framework for Life-Cycle Impact Assessment. Sandestin. Florida. SETAC-Europe. 1994. Integrating Impact Assessment into LCA. Brussels. ed. Udo de Haes, H. A. 1996. Towards a Methodology for Life Cycle Impact Assessment. SETACEurope: Brussels.