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Social LCA – new agenda or old ideas?
June 10, 2014 by Bo Weidema
My personal interest in social LCA go way back – to the ideas of the fair trade movement and the ideas of organic agriculture of respecting both humans and nature (my original education was as an agriculturalist).
In the 1980’ies we tried to formulate these ideas in ways that could be measured and certified. Also, the definition of “environment” in the ISO 14000 is very broad, including the human and social environment, and in line with the awareness that the problems in the outer environment cannot be solved in isolation from issues of social change (cf. World Commission on Environment and Development 1987). With a starting point in the definition of a sustainable development given by the Brundtland-commission, a number of the social indicators have now been codified in ISO 26000.
That LCA should include social issues has been part of LCA thinking from the start. The very early framework on LCA developed at the SETAC workshop in Sandestin (Fava et al. 1992) resulted in a list of social welfare impact categories. Fava et al. (1991) also mention that effects on disadvantaged groups (children, pregnant women, minorities, low-income groups, future generations) should have special attention and that the voluntary versus involuntary exposure is a relevant issue. However, the workshops did not give any solution to how these social welfare aspects could be included in a practical product assessment.
It was not until the more general interest in social issues arose with the concept of “Corporate Social Responsibility” that this also returned to the main agenda of LCA (see e.g. my 2002 presentation Quantifying Corporate Social Responsibility in the value chain to the ISO TC207 meeting in Johannesburg). In 2004, the UNEP/SETAC Task Force on the integration of social criteria into LCA was initiated, which finally resulted in the 2009 “Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products”. In parallel to this, ISO 26000 codified “Social Responsibility” which also integrates a life cycle concern.
Right now, the largest hurdles I see for social LCA to become mainstream are 1) To obtain adequately specific and relevant data 2) To adequately describe and quantify the impact pathways to allow comparisons across impact categories.
To bring quantitative social LCA further, there are also a gap to overcome in the communication between the quantitatively focused social engineers of LCA and the often more qualitatively educated social scientists.
So while I believe there are still some hurdles to overcome, I find that by now social LCA has proven itself as a feasible and applicable method for assessing the product life cycle.
References:
Fava, J.A., Denison, R., Jones, B., Curran, M.A., Vigon, B., Selke, S. & Barnum, J. (1991): A Technical Framework for Life-Cycle Assessments. Washington DC: Society of Env. Toxicology and Chemistry & SETAC Foundation for Env. Education Inc. (Workshop in Smugglers Notch, 18-23.08.1990).
Fava, J.A., Consoli, F., Denison, R., Dickson, K., Mohin, T. & Vigon, B. (1992): A conceptual framework for life-cycle impact analysis. Pensacola: SETAC Foundation for Environmental Education (Report from a workshop in Sandestin 1.-7.2.1992).
Weidema B P (2002) Quantifying Corporate Social Responsibility in the value chain. Presentation for the Life Cycle Management Workshop of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative at the ISO TC207 meeting, Johannesburg, 2002-06-12.
ILCD handbook situation A or B?
May 5, 2014 by Bo Weidema
At times I get the impression that there seems to be a widespread confusion with the text of the ILCD Handbook pertaining to modelling choices. The difference between the ILCA situation A (so-called attributional) and situation B (consequential) is described as if relates to the size of the decision, as if small-scale decisions have no real impacts.
But if a decision has no impacts, there is no point in modelling it with LCA, is there? If there is an impact, what we are studying is a decision that has a marginal (small) impact. And it is this marginal impact that we should then try to model. This is exactly what we do with consequential modelling.
So it seems strange that the ILCD Handbook limits the use of consequential modelling to larger decisions, which are maybe not even marginal! Now, what the ILCD Handbook calls “attributional” in relation to decision situation A (micro-level decision support) is in fact not what is normally understood as “attributional”. UNEP/SETAC in their 2011 Global Guidance Principles for Life Cycle Assessment Databases describe the “attributional approach” as an attempt “to provide information on what portion of global burdens can be associated with a product (and its life cycle)”.
In theory, if one were to conduct attributional LCAs of all final products, one would end up with the total observed environmental burdens worldwide. This is not the case with the modelling described in the ILCD Handbook for decision situation A. Since the model operates with substitution (“system expansion”), the sum of the LCAs of all products in the economy will not add up to the total burdens.
Substitution is a technique you use when you want to study the small changes caused by a decision. And many small changes of course do not add up to the total of all existing burdens, because not everything changes. So from this perspective, the ILCD Situation A model is in fact rather consequential.
Put very shortly, the only difference in the described modelling for situation A and situation B is that the situation A model uses averages as inputs to the markets, while the situation B model uses only the inputs from the marginal suppliers. However, this difference cannot be justified by the size of the decision to be taken. A small decision does not have average consequences, no more than a large decision. A small decision has only marginal impacts (since the word marginal in this context exactly means small, that is: the things that change when you make a small decision…).
In conclusion, I do not find any situations that (are small enough to?) justify the use of the model described for the “Situation A” and therefore recommend in general to always use the model for “situation B” as soon as you are studying a decision that involves a change. I hope my above explanation provides adequate justification for this recommendation. If not, let me know.
New E P&L report
February 18, 2014 by Bo Weidema
A new report on environmental profit and loss account (E P&L) for Novo Nordisk has been released.
Several interesting new methodological developments are presented in the new E P&L. The geographical scope of Novo Nordisk’s E P&L is unique by applying two different regional EIO tables. The model used was an extended input-output (EIO) table called FORWAST developed by 2.-0 LCA consultants which was even further elaborated during the study. Indirect land-use (ILUC) was integrated in the EIO.
The Novo Nordisk E P&L is reported in two parts; the main report, which focuses on the results and the application of these in a Novo Nordisk context, and the methodology report which focuses on the methodology applied for establishing the E P&L results.
Novo Nordisk’s E P&L: http://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2014/02/978-87-93178-02-1.pdf
Methodology report: http://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2014/02/978-87-93178-03-8.pdf
Surprising article in NATURE
December 10, 2013 by Jannick Schmidt
Interesting new article in Nature shows that trees continue to grow and sequester carbon as they mature.
Based on a comprehensive study of 403 tree species and more than 600.000 individual trees from all over the world the scientists question the time-honoured paradigm that old trees grow less than the younger trees. They find that old trees “put on more weight” as they mature – i.e. the productivity at the level of the individual tree is shown to grow with age.
This can explain the “missing sink” for carbon that has puzzled scientist trying to make the carbon cycle data balance.
This news stresses the importance of preserving mature forests, since it would appear that the old giants of the forest are not only carbon reservoirs but actively fix large amounts of carbon compared to smaller trees.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature12914.html