Organisation Environmental Footprint Sector Rules: Progress in the Retail sector & how it could affect you Summary for LCA conference San Francisco, USA Oct 7, 2014 Sarah Mandlebaum LCA analyst, Quantis USA sarah.mandlebaum@quantis-intl.com Carole Dubois Main contact Project manager, Quantis Europe carole.dubois@quantis-intl.com Sebastien Humbert LCA expert, Quantis Europe sebastien.humbert@quantis-intl.com As well as: Simone Pedrazzini, Angela Adams, Agathe Grossmith, Pascal Léglise, Frederic Vermeiren, Steven Van Hemelryck, Hanna Schreiber, Romain Poivet, Martin Wildenberg, Kewin Comploi, Alessandra Zamagni, Paolo Masoni, and Emilie Aubry
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Agenda Process Context Methodology Feedback 4
Agenda Process Context Methodology Feedback 5
Resource Efficiency Roadmap The European policy context Single Market for Green Products (communication by the European Commission on April 9, 2013) Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) Guide Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) Guide Recommendation 2020 Pilot testing phase: 3 years Objective Higher uptake of green products and of greener practices 6
The European Commission has the following goals help organisations establish harmonised environmental measures that are both reliable and complete along their life cycles provide comparable, clear and transparent environmental information to all interested stakeholders The OEFSRs define the rules of the game 7
Retailers Key players in the context of sustainable production and consumption! Retailers act as a link between a multitude of upstream and downstream markets Close relation to the supply chain partners and the consumers 8
OEFSR pilot project for the retail sector Technical Secretariat 1 retailer Assoc. 1 NGO 6 retailers 3 public agencies 1 LCA consultant OEFSR : Organisation Environmental Footprint Sector Rules 9
Agenda Process Context Methodology Feedback 10
The Environmental Footprint pilot phase The steps for building an OEFSR 1. Definition of the sector 2. Definition of representative organisation* 3. OEF screening : most relevant life cycle stages, processes and impacts 4. Draft of sector rules 5. Supporting study: test draft OEFSR 6. Final OEFSR * The representative organisation may or may not be a real organisation active on the market. Especially when technologies and the composition of Production Portfolios within a sector are varied, the representative organisation may be a virtual (non-existing) organisation with the average EU salesweighted characteristics of all technologies around, using the Product Portfolio as a reference. 11
Communication phase Supporting study Update PEFCR/OEFSR Conception Implementation Feedback Communication framework Public consultation 12
How do the Footprint pilot phase and Communication phase fit together? i) Most relevant indicators ii) Main life cycle stages Results based on the draft PEFCR/OEFSR Conception Implementation Communication vehicles 13
Agenda Process Context Methodology Feedback 14
Issues discussed within the Technical Secretariat Does production include goods AND services? What to encompass in the product portfolio (in-house products only? National brands? Other brands?) Do we include all retailers types (franchisee, licensee, e-business, etc.)? How do we deal with owned and operated activities? Are they all to be included in the environmental impacts? Do we include the wholesale activities? How to define what a business unit it is? 15
Methodology Scope Representative Organisation Definition Product portfolio System boundaries 16
Methodology Scope Representative Organisation Definition Product portfolio System boundaries 17
System boundaries (for retailers) 18
Methodology Scope Representative Organisation Definition Product portfolio System boundaries 19
How to assess the life cycle impacts of >100 000 products in a few weeks? Importance of generic LCI databases of consumer goods products! 20
LCIA method which indicators are most relevant? Outputs Pesticide PM 2.5 Cu CO 2 Phosphate Inputs Water well Arable land Crude oil Iron ore Climate change (kg CO2-eq) Ozone depletion (kg CFC11-eq) Freshwater ecotoxicity (CTUe = PAF.m3.day) Human toxicity cancer (CTUh = cases) Human toxicity non-cancer (CTUh = cases) Respiratory inorganics (kg PM2.5-eq) Ionizing radition (kbq U235-eq) Photochemical ozone formation (kg NMVOC-eq) Acidification (mole H+-eq) Terrestrial eutrophication (mole N-eq) Marine eutrophication (kg N-eq) Freshwater eutrophication (kg P-eq) Resource depletion water (m3-eq) Resource depletion mineral, fossil (kg Sb eq) Land transformation (kg of carbon) And hundreds more 21
Next steps - Finalization of the screening and draft of the sector rules - Public consultation in December 2014 - Submission for final approval in January 2015 - Application by some companies: 2015 - Communication pilot: 2016 22
Key take-aways - Retail sector is defining the rules to calculate the environmental footprint of that sector - Retailers wanting to join the project are welcome contact Quantis - Next steps will be to test ways to communicate on footprint results toward businesses or consumers -> big opportunity to created added value from environmental data 23