FINLCA Finnish platform on life cycle methods for supporting the strategic decision making of companies Starting points: FINLCA is funded by the funct

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1 Introduction to Finnish Platform on Life Cycle Assessment, FINLCA Prof. Jyri Seppälä Finnish Environment Institute Finnish Society for Industrial Ecology conference , Turku

2 FINLCA Finnish platform on life cycle methods for supporting the strategic decision making of companies Starting points: FINLCA is funded by the functional materials programme ( ) of TEKES The programme aims at developing new applications for Finnish industrial sectors With the help of FINLCA: the properties of functional materials are designed to serve a specific purpose with better environmental performance Timetable of FINLCA: summer 2009-summer 2011 Why do we need FINLCA: Environmental issues play an important role in the future (e.g. climate change, depletion of natural resources (e.g. water, phosphorus, metals), impacts on biodiversity etc.) => incremental and radical innovations are needed The demand of environmentally friendly products and services are increasing How do we determine the environmental performance of specific technologies/products/services? How do we utilize environmental information?

3 Life Cycle Thinking Source: Melanen et al Metals flows and recycling of scrap in Finland. The Finnish Environment 401. Finnish Environment Institute, Helsinki

4 Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a methodological tool that applies life cycle thinking in an quantitative way on environmental analysis of activities related to processes or products (goods and services) takes into account the product s full life cycle: from the extraction of resources, production, consumption and recycling up to the disposal of remaining waste ( cradle to grave ) quantifies the emissions, resources consumed, as well as environmental and health impacts that are associated with products A framework for LCA has been standardised by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) in the ISO series there is a need to apply simplified but reliable tools

5 SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY CHARACTERI- ZATION ENVIRON- MENTAL ECONOMY Scenario analysis Integration Software and dissemination Involvement of key experts and stakeholder TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT Level of complexity and uncertainty & ambiguity Overview of the concept of the sustainability assessment methodology (Prosuite, EU 7 th FPE)

6 FINLCA the Finnish platform on life cycle methods for supporting the strategic decision making of companies Aims at: creating the forum of life cycle methods for companies with help of researchers supporting the strategic decision making of companies from the viewpoint of environmental dimension in sustainable development producing life cycle based data and tools for companies offering a national roadmap to implement the use of life cycle methods in Finnish companies A company gets data and experiences in: life cycle methods, their uses and realizations best practices to carry out the methods the interpretation of results including uncertainty aspects the integration of methods into the planning and management practices of companies To boost the competitiveness of Finnish companies due to the better use of environmental information in product processes

7 Organisation and budget Research group: Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) (a coordinator) Åbo Akademi University Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) University of Oulu (Process Metallurgy) Helsinki University of Technology (TKK) (Cleantech Group and Department of Mechanical Engineering) Main company partners : Finnish Forest Industries Federation The Finnish Plastics Recycling Ltd Scandinavian Copper Development Association Outotec Ltd Metals Industry (Rautaruukki and Outokumpu) Neste Oil Ltd The Federation of Finnish Technology Industries Tikkurila Ltd Steering group: companies, TEKES, research organisations BUDGET: (the share of TEKES is (60 %)

8 Life Cycle Methods - strengths and weaknesses Life cycle thinking Streamlined life cycle assessment Full life cycle assessment (LCA) Thermodynamic methods Material flow accounts (MFA) Environmentally extended input output analysis (EEIO) MIPS (material input per service) Ecological footprint Carbon / water footprints

9 Relationships between the total material requirement (TMR) and environmental impacts (Ecoindex) of product groups 0,05 0,04 Ecoindex 0,03 0,02 0, TMR (1000 tn) Source: ENVIMAT 2009

10 Applications for each method - suitability product development and improvement process and service operation strategic planning technological impact assessment public policy making marketing

11 Especially focus on industrial applications To support methodologies or tools aimed at developing greener products, such as Design for Environment (DfE) or Design for Recycling (DfR) To compare different design options during product development To identify the most important environmental problems (hot spots) in the life-cycle of their own products and of competitors products (benchmarking) To document improvements in the environmental performance of products To select amongst suppliers in a green supply chain management To communicate the environmental performance of products or services, through the use of environmental labels and product declarations To quantifying indirect effects which occur outside the production site but are caused by the demand of products and services on site Benchmarking sites to find optimisation potentials

12 FINLCA Structure of the project THEORY, PRACTICE AND DEVELOPMENT ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK WP 4 solutions and recommendations for the use of life cycle methods in strategic decision making and developing greener products WP1 The state of art of LC methods, applications and development needs WP2 Development of methods WP3 Strategic life cycle management CASE STUDIES WP 5 testing the framework with help of case studies WP 6 Coordination, dissimination and reporting

13 WP 2 : Development of methodology WP 2.1: Land use WP 2.2: Ecotoxicity WP 2.3: Impacts of nanomaterials WP 2.4: Sustainability assessment of natural resources WP 2.5: Measurements of properties of materials in order to predict the environmental effects of materials (including thermodynamic methods) WP 2.6: Management of missing, qualitative and uncertainty data

14 Aggregation of different impact categories into ecopoints

15 WP 3 : Strategic life cycle management Aims at indentifying and developing a framework/measures in order integrate life cycle (LC) methods into companies decision making Task 1: to create criteria for strategic decision making from the viewpoints of sustainable development (Determination of sustainability principles in general and/or in specific industry sectors) Task 2: to improve the LC approaches towards business enterprise perspectives e.g. - the effects of environmental policy and legislation - the effects of system boundaries - qualitative and quantitative information - forecasting vs. backcasting approaches - spatial and temporal aspects, unknown environmental impacts - the vision/overall objective/purpose of LC methods Task 3: to develop a new LC based theory/framework for strategic decision making - explorative conceptual analysis and brainstorming - testing in the case studies

16 Strategic Life Cycle Management - Sustainability mechanisms/ principles/causes - Strategic approach Env. impacts Env. impacts Env. impacts Env. impacts Source: Åbo Akademi University Copyright 2004 The Natural Step

17 WP 5 : Case studies aim at ensuring the feasibility of the asssessment framework developed WP 5.1: New metal materials thermodynamic methods EEIO applications WP 5.2: Biomaterials land use WP 5.3: Eco-efficiency building materials wood - concrete - steel WP 5.4: New cross-industrial recycling materials depeletion of natural resources WP 5.5: Paint industry ecotoxicity

18 Links with other projects and co-operation International activities: seminars, workshops, presentations, international exchange researchers, reporting in English European Platform on LCA, SETAC/UNEP, NorLCA, Global footprint network, global resource panel, IPPC, CEN/ISO, ISDRS, Natural Steps EU projects: Prosuite, Exiopol Domestic activities: workshops, seminars, presentations, articles Finnish Society for Industrial Ecology Projects and programmes: TEKES, Finnish Academia CLEEN Oy, FIMECC Oy

19 Thank you for your attention!