Benchmarking and additional environmental information in ... - ANEC

observation is also the experience of the reviewer, but the drawbacks of EIOdata
should not be neglected.
The most prominent question in this respect is probably how the low level of
detail influences the results. At its best, EIO data are currently found for 480
industrial sectors, and this is not very satisfying when considering that these
data are used to calculate the environmental impacts of tens or hundreds of
thousands of products coming from the same sectors. Some examples of the
consequences of this can be found in Schmidt et al. (2003), e.g. that it is not
possible to distinguish between the impacts from production, use and disposal
of different types of plastics.
2.10.3 Life cycle stages
All stages from cradle to grave are considered in the approach suggested. It is
remarked that the geographical boundaries for the market on which the EPD is
valid are considered to be an important element, needing special attention. The
importance is especially related to the use stage (differences in local electricity
supply) and disposal stage (differences in local/national waste disposal
systems).
In the reporting of the results, the following four stages should be distinguished:
• “Before our gate”, including all suppliers to “Our production” as well as
purchased electricity
• “Our production”, including only the production plant
• “Use”, including all complementary products needed in the use stage
• “End-of-life” (waste disposal and recycling)
2.10.4 Attributional or consequential LCA
The recommendation by 2.-0 Consultants is to use consequential LCA,
especially in relation to the site-specific parts of the study, e.g. where data are
supplied by an individual company. 2.-0 Consultants also suggest that the
general I/O-database be adjusted to consequential modelling, at least for
sectors with important constraints on specific technologies or production routes.
The main argument for using consequential LCA is that this approach identifies
the processes affected by a purchase of the declared product and, accordingly
also gives information about the environmental consequences of the decision.
2.-0 Consultants are aware that the consequential LCA approach has gained
limited acceptance in connection with EPD’s, despise the fact that it is judged to
be widely used in product development and policy-making, and is emerging in
relation to Type I environmental Labels. Accordingly, it is foreseen by 2.-0
Consultants that it will take time to reach a consensus on the use of the
consequential approach.
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