Requirements on Consumer Information about Product ... - ANEC

Consumer Information about PCF
Ability to compare products with similar functions but differing production and/or
operating technologies
“LCA-methodology is much better capable of comparing system alternatives and would
therefore be able to broaden labelling schemes to much wider defined product groups.
Thereby, it would be possible to base product comparisons on the delivered functions
instead of the technologies currently present on the market. Such an approach would be
much more open to innovations that follow alternative technological approaches.
Nevertheless, it has to be added that even for such applications, LCA does not have to be
applied for each individual product covered by the labelling scheme separately. Especially for
type I ecolabels it seems much more practical to carry out an initial LCA comparing the different
system alternatives, which is than updated periodically. With this initial LCA, the environmentally
worst system alternatives can be generally excluded from the labelling schemes.
Than for the remaining system alternatives product related criteria 5 can be developed.”
Prakash 2008
For PCF the same system approach is applicable as for the LCA approach. Also for PCF it
usually makes no sense to perform studies on many different single products of the same
product group. In order to draw general conclusions and to find the strong and weak points of
a solution it is sufficient to study in detail representative types of system alternatives. Of
course it has to be kept in mind that – due to the focus on greenhouse gases – the PCF
approach is to be complemented by a screening of other environmental impacts in order not
to point in the wrong direction. As already mentioned earlier it may be justified to focus on the
most relevant life cycle phase or to use alternatively another indicator that correlates to the
CO2e emissions (such as electricity demand in the usage phase).
Due to general restrictions and also to the standardisation still being under development,
figures on CO2e emissions from different PCF labels – e.g. Casino Carbon Index and
Carbon Trust Carbon reduction label – cannot be compared directly at the moment.
Moreover, the comparison of PCF studies done by different institutions most likely is not
possible as different data bases may be used, different user scenarios may be defined etc.
This is a fundamental problem of PCF studies that would be changed partly when the
standardisation process is completed. Actually it would be fundamental that Product
Category Rules (PCR) were defined as obligatory by standardisation. PCRs define
fundamental rules concerning the scoping of a PCF study for products of the same product
group (e.g. adequate user scenarios, data bases, relevance of other environmental impacts
etc.). Additionally, their development includes stakeholder involvement.
5
Amendment: those criteria usually are non-LCA indicators and may concentrate on the relevant life cycle
phase, such as electricity demand in the usage phase.
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