Relative importance of sustainability impact pathways – A first rough assessment

Weidema B P (2022)

Publication info

Aalborg: 2.-0 LCA consultants.

Structured and exhaustive account of current impacts

“Relative importance of sustainability impact pathways – A first rough assessment” provides guidance to focus the data collection and the development of further precision and accuracy of indicators and characterisation factors (linking the quantified impacts to their quantified causes) on the impact pathways that are of particularly high relative importance. This top-down assessment of importance is done by using Quality-Adjusted person-Life-Year (QALY) as a unit for sustainable wellbeing, informed by the annual UN measures of subjective wellbeing, and using the exhaustive classification of the so-called capital models as ‘Safeguard subjects’ to provide a structured and exhaustive account of the current impacts (estimated for year 2019) on each of the ‘Areas of Protection’, covering both instrumental values (productivity, value added, or income) and the intrinsic values of natural and manufactured assets, human capabilities, and social networks.

 The report is prepared by Bo P. Weidema for the 2.-0 SDG Club and the UNEP Life Cycle Initiative as part of the project “Linking the UN Sustainable Development Goals to life cycle impact pathway frameworks”.

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