Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) Test Kit

October 2013

Today’s agenda

1. Introduction: Product Environmental Footprint (PEF)

2. Goal and scope of the PEF test kit

3. Soil Organic Matter (SOM) model for the assessment of land transformation

4. End of Life Method to deal with multi-functionality in recycling situations

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• Download the PEF Test kit here

It contains:

• GaBi plans in English & German

• Official PEF guide by the European Commission

• Installation guide

You can watch the PEF test kit video here

In case of technical problems please contact support@gabi-software.com

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If you haven’t downloaded the PEF Test kit yet

• EC European Commission

• JRC Joint Research Center

• PEF Product Environmental Footprinting

• PCR Product Category Rules

• PEFCR Product Environmental Footprinting Category Rules

• SOM/SOC Soil Organic Matter/ Soil Organic Carbon

• EoL End of Life

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Abbreviations

Introduction: Product Environmental Footprint (PEF)

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Product Environmental Footprint Initiative of the EC

PEF Guide PEFCR PEF

• Published in April 2013 • First technical specifications • Identification of issues to be

specified in PEFCR

• First PEFCRS developed in pilots

• Roll out of PEFCR according to process to be developed in pilots • Environmental Product

Declaration in compliance with EU single market for Green Products

2013 2015 2016

ANNEX II PRODUCT ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT (PEF) GUIDE

Official Journal of the European Union Volume 56, L 124, 4.5.2013

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Official framework

COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION of 9 April 2013 on the use of common methods to measure and communicate the life cycle environmental performance of products and organisations (2013/179/EU)

EC Environmental Footprinting Initiative: Possible Timeline

Testing

EC Environmental Footprinting Pilot Projects provide the framework to establish binding product category rules/procedures and company sector rules.

Year KW

2010 H2 H1

2011 H2 H1

2012 H2 H1

2013 H2 H1

2014 H2 H1

2015 H2 H1

2016 H2 H1

2017 H2 H1

2018 H2 H1

2019 H2 H1

Standard available EC Drafting

ILCD Handbook

Data

Lead Time/Voluntary

Pilot Testing

Regulation in place, Expert estimation (earliest date)

EC Environmental Footprinting Guides

Definition of Product & Sector Category Specific Guidelines

Ipilot Evaluation/Integration in existing policy

Pilot Projects

EC Drafting

Database Reviews

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Regulation in place

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Use of Results: Current LCA vs. PEF Initiative

Issue Current Practise PEF Guide

Green Claims LCA study according to own interpretation of ISO 14044, no PCR document required.

EC wants a single market for green products. All future green claims (declarations) should be based on an PEF & PEFCR.

Green Claims w/ comparisons

Comparison new model vs. predecessor: each company may use its own LCA methodology.

PEFCR will become standard to be used for classical comparative assertions. Companies will loose flexibility here.

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Use of Results: Current LCA vs. PEF Initiative

Issue Current Practice PEF Guide

End of Life ISO 14044: various options possible. EoL: ”One fits all” formula to calculate recycling situations

Electricity Upstream: Use of national grid mixes Downstream: Use of national grid mixes

Upstream: preference to supplier-specific data Downstream: national grid mixes according to location of use.

Cut-off Usually some inputs are neglected (up to 5% of the mass)

No cut-off allowed: Fill cut-offs by worst case estimations

Capital goods

Only included in exceptional cases; e.g. wind power

Shall be included; incl. Machinery, buildings, transport vehicles

Data Quality Indicators

no systematic use/ no aggregation/ no specific requirements

Crucial element/ aggregation/ DQI targets are given

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Use of Results: Current LCA vs. PEF Initiative

Issue Current Practice PEF Guide

Impact Assessment Categories

No default impact categories defined.

Default list of 14 impact categories which must be included (PEF Guide, p.21)

Impact Assessment Methods

Most of our clients use CML CML is only used for resource depletion. All other categories have to be modelled using other methods. (PEF guide, p.21)

Normalisation Not common practice; normalization factors outdated)

Normalisation is not required, but recommended. Normalisation will be tested in the PEF pilots and normalisation factors will be provided by the EC (end 2013)

Weighting We usually do not use weighting in our LCA studies

Weighting is mentioned as an option and is not discouraged. Will be tested in pilots and may become an issue of future PCRs (labeling)

Additional Environmental Information

If not required in an EPD we do not give additional environmental information.

Shall be included, to cover environmental information not included in default categories, or report offsets etc.

Definition of Product

Category/ Analysis of

existing PCRs

Definition of the "representative

product

PEF Screening Drafting PEFCR based on PEF

Screening

PEFCR supporting

study

Definition of Benchmarks &

Classes of Environmental Performance

1st physical consultation

1st open consultation

2014

2nd physical consultation

2nd open consultation

Technical Secretariat

Technical Secretariat

Technical Secretariat

Technical Secretariat

3 or more member companies

2015

Stakeholders consultation process

Mandatory steps PEFCR development and responsibilities 2013

PEFCR development Process

The PEFCR development process will be tested and refined to become the official process for PEFCR/OEFSR development in Europe

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Goal and scope of the PEF test kit

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• Giving customers access to features to fulfill special requirements of PEF. Most of the customers today have no use for these features, they do not affect their work in GaBi.

• Some features are foreseen to be discussed/changed during the course of the PEF pilot projects PEF kit for download, no integration into regular databases

• Enable use of LCIA method for land use (Soil Organic Matter, SOM) to model the foreground system of a PEF project.

• Clarify the use of the method to deal with multi-functionality in recycling situations (EoL allocation formula) provided in Annex V of the PEF guide. Enable use of the formula for modelling the foreground system of a PEF project.

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Goal and scope of the PEF test kit

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PEF in GaBi (Annex I of the PEF guide) • 1 General Approach • 1.1 Principles • 3.1 Goal definition • 4.1 Scope definition • 4.2 Unit of analysis and reference flow • 4.3 System boundaries • 4.3 Offsets

• 4.4 Selection of EF impact categories and methods X • 4.5 Selecting additional environmental information • 4.6 Assumptions/limitations • 5.1 Resource Use and Emissions Profile • 5.2 Resource Use and Emissions Profile – Screening step • 5.4 Resource Use and Emissions Profile – Data

• 5.4.5 Use stage • 5.4.6 Logistics • 5.4.7 End-of-life stage • 5.4.8 Electricity use • 5.4.9 Biogenic carbon removals and emissions • 5.4.9 Direct and indirect land use change (impact for climate change) • 5.5 Nomenclature

• 5.6 Data Quality requirements () • 5.7 Specific data collection • 5.8 Generic data collection • 5.9 Dealing with Data Gaps

• 5.10 Handling Multi functionality X • 6.1 Environmental Footprint Impact Assessment • 6.1.1 Classification • 6.1.2 Characterisation • 6.2.1 Normalisation (if applied) • 6.2.2 Weighting (if applied) • 7.1 Interpretation of results • 7.2 Model robustness • 7.3 Identification of Hotspots

• 7.4 Estimation of Uncertainty () • 7.5 Conclusions, Recommendations, and Limitations

Possible in GaBi today () Possible in the near future X PEF test kit for foreground

system

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PEF impact categories

In GaBi 6

()

() ()

implemented in GaBi 6

() implemented in GaBi 6, but no spatial distribution implemented

PEF test kit

Soil Organic Matter (SOM) model for the assessment of land transformation

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• The method is described in various scientific publications, e.g. Brandao, M., Mila i Canals, L., Clift, R.: Soil organic carbon changes in the cultivation of energy crops: Implications for GHG balances and soil quality for use in LCA, biomass and bioenergy, Elsevier, 2010

from which the following graphic is taken

• Mass of carbon lost from the soil during transformation and occupation is used to describe the environmental problem field of land use

• Characteristic unit: kg C deficit eq.

• At the moment the method is not using regionalised characterisation (e.g. land use in Germany and land use in Russia count the same)

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SOM method for assessment of land transformation

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SOM - formula

Transformation

Occupation

• Difficult and time consuming to actually measure the carbon content of soil over time. The values of the characterisation factors are therefore calculated using various literature sources mainly from France and the UK.

• The carbon content SOCfin of sealed areas (traffic, industrial, urban etc.) is set to zero or in other words, sealed areas contain no more carbon.

• The value of SOCpot (the potential soil organic carbon content of the reference system, which is undisturbed primary forest) is very high compared to other values of the calculation. Therefore any transformation of areas that leads to a deterioration of the land quality (e.g. from arable to industrial area) has a very high impact compared to land occupation (e.g. occupation for permanent crops).

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SOM method - limitations

• The method is rarely used in LCA case studies today

• No institution maintains the method, provides services and answers questions. Therefore the European Commission (JRC Ispra) calculated the majority of the characterisation factors of the land use flows by themselves

• There is a profound lack of data regarding production systems

• Some methodological issues are unsolved (e.g. how to deal with underground land transformation, how to deal with use changes of aquatic systems)

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SOM method - evaluation

• The LCIA quantity “Land use, Soil Organic Matter (SOM)” can be found under Quantities - Environmental quantities - ILCD recommendations.

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SOM in GaBi

Method to deal with multi-functionality in recycling situations

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• “One fits all” formula to calculate open loop/closed loop/reuse/down-cycling/energy recovery recycling situations (Annex V to PEF guide) that is mandatory.

• It follows the 50:50 approach (PE uses cut-off or avoided burden)

• GaBi datasets use cut-off approach or avoided burden approach. This formula is not used in any of the PE datasets up to now, but can be used in any model.

• The formula contains inconsistencies/mistakes/debatable items and is under debate during the pilot projects. At the moment, JRC Ispra has introduced 3 alternative formulas as test candidates. PE will and all other stakeholders are advised to actively take part in the debate via the official channels (e.g. public consultations)

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Method to deal with multi-functionality in recycling situations

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Multi-functionality in recycling situations - system

Secondary as 50% primary

Primary

Material production

Production

Use Collection

Energy recycling

Material recycling

Landfill

Credits 50%

Credits 50%

System boundaries

% %

No looping back of the secondary material

Credits 50%

• Input: Production of primary material (amount: primary material plus 50% of secondary material used)

• Input: Production of secondary material (amount: 50% of secondary material used) only collection sorting, transports… are in the system boundaries

• Output: Material recycling. Secondary material substitutes primary material (where required using a value corrected substitution), credits for primary material (amount: 50% of secondary material generated)

• Output: Energy recycling. Credits for energy (electricity and thermal energy), (amount: 100% of energy generated)

• Output: The rest is landfilled, energy credits are given. The use of secondary material avoids burdens of landfilling, credits for this are given.

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Multi-functionality in recycling situations - formula

• The End of Life model can be found in the plan “GLO: Multi-functionality in End-of-Life Situations (PEF guide, Annex V)” under Plans - Recycling

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Multi-functionality in recycling situations in GaBi

Right-click to access the parameters of the two parameterised processes

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Multi-functionality in recycling situations in GaBi

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Multi-functionality in recycling situations – comparing existing LCA with PEF results

GWP in [kg CO2 Eqiv.]

• The formula can generate burdens and credits for landfill, even if no material is landfilled.

• No looping back of the secondary material output to saturate the secondary material input

You are affected, if… • You use secondary materials for production • You generate secondary materials or energy at the EoL • You use datasets that are currently modelled with a loop back to saturate the

secondary material

• Among the materials/products that would change are: Steel, aluminium, copper, glass, paper, plastics…

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Multi-functionality in recycling situations - limitations

• Now you can try PEF yourself!

• PE INTERNATIONAL will take part in the PEF pilot projects.

• We will keep you informed about latest developments and changes to the framework via: • PE Newsletter • Product Sustainability Update • GaBi user group on LinkedIn • www.pe-international.com

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Next steps

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• For technical questions: support@gabi-software.com

• Please post any other questions in the LinkedIn Forum!

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Thank you for your attention!