Author: Danny Chivers Organisation: Best Foot Forward Created: January 2013 Last updated: May 2013
Topic Guide Carrying out a Life Cycle Assessment or Footprinting Study This Topic Guide is intended to be used by a Senior manager within a retailer or manufacturer. Key points: Understanding the environmental impact of your products from cradle-to-grave Using the results to inform your supply chain
Overview Every product, every workplace, and every business activity has an impact on the environment. In a world facing multiple crises of resource depletion, biodiversity loss, the pollution of air, water and soils, and dangerous climate change, there is an urgent need to work towards reducing these impacts to make our products, businesses and services fit for the twenty-first century. The reasons for understanding the environmental or social impacts of your product may vary and the process is usually tailored to specific requirements. It is therefore important to identify the most effective way of collating the relevant information and assessing opportunities for improvement. This document is intended to help you identify what you need to know and how to get the necessary information. It can be used in planning, conducting and reviewing environmental and social impacts. Before launching into an LCA/footprint study, you may wish to start with a simpler assessment of key areas of environmental risk within your organisation. We have produced a separate Topic Guide that addresses this issue called 'How to identify high sustainability, reputation, and supply chain risk and resilience'. This will help you to:
Find out where your resources (materials, energy, water) come from; Know what you do with them; Find out where they end up.
An initial basic assessment like this can also act as a useful foundation for a more detailed LCA/footprint study.
Some initial definitions Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): A piece of research that looks at all the relevant stages in the life of a product or service, and calculates the amount and type of resources consumed and the amount and type of wastes produced along the way .This can be a “multi-indicator” LCA, measuring a number of different types of wastes and resources; or it can be a “single-indicator” LCA, looking at just one element. Footprint study: A piece of research that focuses on one particular indicator, for example greenhouse gas emissions (a carbon footprint), water use (a water footprint) or global land use (an ecological footprint). This could take the form of an LCA (they can be interchangeable), looking at how much of that particular indicator is produced or consumed during the life cycle of a product; it could also take the form of an annual inventory, totting up how much is used up or emitted during a year of activity at a particular site, for a specific business activity, or for an organisation as a whole. Note that no footprint study is ever perfect – they are always a “best estimate” of the emissions from a particular snapshot in time, based on the available data.
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Author: Danny Chivers Organisation: Best Foot Forward Created: January 2013 Last updated: May 2013
Defining the project: asking the right questions First, consider what you’re trying to achieve. The flowchart below can help identify what you need to do in response to different drivers. For example, is your principal aim to reduce reputational risk, improve your brand or increase staff satisfaction? Are you more concerned about matching your business practices to your stated ethos, preparing for future resource scarcity, or seeking efficiency savings?
ORGANISATIONAL AIMS
Suggested follow-up actions for LCA/footprinting results
STAFF SATISFACTION
UPHOLD ORGANISATIONAL ETHOS
PRESSURE FROM CUSTOMERS CONCERN ABOUT ISSUES BRAND IMPROVEMENT
INTERNAL SUSTAINABILITY COMMUNICATIONS FUTURE-PROOFING
AVOID REPUTATIONAL RISK
CONCERN ABOUT ISSUES
Use results of LCA/footprinting study to manage and reduce negative impacts, in line with environmental science
Identify which material inputs you rely on most heavily, and which could be vulnerable in a resource-constrained future
Communicate the actions you have taken to staff, customers and other stakeholders as appropriate
Identify areas of particular controversy, manage and reduce these impacts
ANTICIPATE REGULATION
EFFICIENCY COST SAVINGS
Manage and reduce the inputs and wastes most vulnerable to regulation (e.g. energy, greenhouse gases) Identify areas where greater efficiency could lead to both financial savings and environmental benefits
Another resource you might find useful at this stage are the Product Summaries from the Product Sustainability Forum (PSF). These summarise the key environmental impacts of 50 common products, and can provide an initial sense of which parts of your product’s life cycle could be the most useful to focus on. See “Resources” on Page 6 for more information.
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Author: Danny Chivers Organisation: Best Foot Forward Created: January 2013 Last updated: May 2013
Implementation Process Expect to allocate a third of your available resources to each of these three steps:
Step 1 Why and What Set clear goals and boundaries. Consult with staff and stakeholders, understand why you are doing this and what you want to achieve
Step 2 Plan Create a clear plan for using the results. Set aside resources for reporting and follow-up action
Step 3 Launch Only launch the study when Steps 1 and 2 have been completed
Step 1 – Set clear goals and boundaries It is important to be clear on what you want to know at the outset and what the boundaries of your study are. Make sure you consult with relevant staff and stakeholders, and confirm a clear set of aims for the study, and what is in and out of scope. This is very important to consider from the start – do you want to understand the environmental impacts of an entire company, or just one product line? Just the activities within a single country, or all global offices? Just your upstream supply chain or down to the customer too? There’s a balance to be struck here – you’ll want the research to be broad enough to credibly meet your aims, without being overambitious with regard to time, money and expertise. A key factor will be data availability; for example, you may wish to include the environmental impact of some of your key suppliers, but that will only be possible if they are willing to share the necessary information with you. One suggested strategy is to make a list of key business activities and processes that you definitely wish to include in the study, and a list of “nice to have” elements to include if possible. This list can then form the basis of discussions with whomever you commission to conduct the study – they should be able to tell you the likely costs (in time and money) of including different things from your list, allowing you to decide what to include and exclude. Step 2 – Create an action plan for using the results 1 This is a vital part of the process. According to research by Fullana i Palmer et al in 2011 , if you wish to gain the maximum benefit from an environmental assessment, you should expect to devote a full third of the project’s resources to communicating the results and planning future actions. The kind of actions to plan for will depend on your aims – see the flow chart on page two. You may also wish to put aside some capacity for dealing with unexpected discoveries. Environmental assessment studies can unearth all kinds of new possibilities, including opportunities for quick efficiency gains, existing good practice on which you aren’t fully capitalising, and hitherto unrealised chances for innovation. Step 3 – Kick off the study The first thing to consider when commissioning an LCA/footprinting study is: do you have the necessary knowledge and experience amongst your own staff? If so, you may wish to conduct an in-house study. In this case, be sure to allocate enough staff time to carry out the research properly, and consider purchasing training sessions and/or footprinting tools to support this work (see Resources, overleaf). You may decide that you do not have the necessary skills and/or resources within your company, and it would therefore make sense to use an external consultant or other expert (e.g. academics).
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Pere Fullana i Palmer, Rita Puig, Alba Bala, Grau Baquero, Jordi Riba, and Marco Raugei, 2011. From Life Cycle Assessment to Life Cycle Management, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Vol 15 no. 3
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Author: Danny Chivers Organisation: Best Foot Forward Created: January 2013 Last updated: May 2013
The following table summarises the main types of assessment that could be useful to you. Steps 1 and 2 should have given you a good sense of which of these will be best for meeting your needs:
Types of assessment Type of research
What it can tell you
Hot spot screening assessment
Which parts of your organisation are likely to have the largest environmental impact
Single metric footprint
One key measure of your environmental impact – for example, a water footprint or a carbon footprint
Multi metric footprint
Two or more indicators of your environmental impact, e.g. water and energy use
Full product LCA
A detailed picture of everything extracted from, and released into, the environment by your business activities
What it might be useful for
What data you’ll need to collect
Deciding which elements of your business to focus on for further action
Basic information on material or financial flows in different parts of your organisation
Understanding, communicating and identifying opportunities for reduction of a key environmental impact Understanding, communicating and identifying opportunities for reduction of multiple environmental impacts Understanding, communicating and identifying opportunities for reduction of most environmental impacts
Information on relevant inputs and outputs (of materials, energy or possibly money) in relevant parts of your business Information on relevant inputs and outputs (of materials, energy or possibly money) in relevant parts of your business Detailed information on relevant inputs and outputs (of materials, energy or possibly finance) in relevant parts of your business
Limitations Only gives a very rough picture. Useful for deciding where to focus future efforts but not for developing detailed policies Focuses on just one type of environmental indicator Requires more data than a single metric footprint, can be more complex to communicate Requires a lot of data and produces complex results which often need further interpretation
Whichever type of assessment you choose, the following checklist should be useful - either as a list of issues for your own staff to research and understand, or as items to discuss with potential consultants. 1) Review everything from Step 1 and Step 2 – what are your aims and boundaries, and how do you plan to use the results? 2) Do you need your results to be compatible with any other studies, for example those carried out in previous years or by partner organisations? If so, find out what methodology they used and ensure that your own methods don’t differ too sharply (or be sure to highlight and explain any differences) 3) What units do you want to use? Do you want to know the impact per tonne of product, per unit produced, or per year of business activity? 4) How will you collect the data? Who in your organisation has access to the necessary data? Are they primed and ready to collect or collate it? Will you need data from outside your own organisation – e.g. from your supply chain – and will they be willing to share it with you?
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Author: Danny Chivers Organisation: Best Foot Forward Created: January 2013 Last updated: May 2013
BOX 1: Typical barriers to launching LCA/footprint studies, and brief suggestions on how to overcome them a)
Insufficient financial resources: Try to source enough finance for an initial scoping study that will highlight potential cost savings as well as environmental benefits, and help to make a strong case for further research that could work out to be cost-efficient in the long term b) Data availability: For an initial scoping study, it’s fine to fill some data gaps with well-grounded estimates or approximations from financial data c) Lack of staff engagement in relevant parts of the organisation: Talk to staff and find out why they are reluctant to participate. Are they worried about being landed with extra work, or have they become disillusioned by unsuccessful green initiatives in the past? How can you ensure they have the necessary support, training, capacity and opportunities for practical input? d) Future commitment: If you carry out an environmental assessment, then staff, customers and other stakeholders may expect you to follow through and tackle your environmental impacts. This is something to be embraced, not feared - there are many potential benefits to taking further action, from efficiency savings to brand enhancement, as listed in the flow chart on page three. 5) Can you collect “physical” data (tonnes of material, KWh of energy), or will you need to use some financial data as a proxy? Check that your consultant/staff team has the necessary tools for your chosen method – physical data is best, but financial models can be good enough for basic analysis. 6) Do you want to comply with a recognised carbon footprinting standard? If this study is primarily for internal management purposes, then strict compliance with a standard may not be that important. If, however, your aims include external communication of greenhouse gas emissions, then you may want to work towards a recognised certificate such as PAS2050 and/or the GHG Product Protocol (see Box 2).
BOX 2: Carbon Footprinting Standards The Greenhouse Gas Protocol website gives the following description of the two main carbon footprinting standards: PAS 2050 was introduced in 2008 (revised in 2011) with the aim of providing a consistent internationally applicable method for quantifying product carbon footprints. The GHG Protocol Product Standard was released in 2011 and in addition to providing requirements to quantify the GHG inventories of products, also includes requirements for public reporting. Both standards are broadly consistent in their quantification methods, but their differing purpose and standard development processes has lead to two different documents. For more information, search online for “GHG Protocol PAS 2050 Factsheet”. 7) Choose a contractor carefully: Make sure they are responsive to your needs, rather than just presenting you with a one-size-fits-all plan. Will they tell you upfront if part of your proposal won’t work or needs improving? Do they have a track record of working in your industry, or in related industries? How transparent are they with their methodology? Will they give you access to their calculation tools or spreadsheets for in-house usage? Ask for reports they’ve written in the past – can they communicate clearly with your chosen audience? You will get different results from a university than from an independent consultancy; a university study is more likely to carry weight with external audiences, but the results could be very complex and more difficult to translate into organisational change. 8) Allocate the necessary resources: Typically, product footprints range in price from as little as £2,500 for basic scoping projects, to £25,000+ for a detailed footprint report with primary data collection. As well as money, you’ll need to set aside staff capacity for the project, even if the bulk of the work is being done
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Author: Danny Chivers Organisation: Best Foot Forward Created: January 2013 Last updated: May 2013
externally – your staff will need time to collect and verify the necessary data, and to feed into the project’s aims and subsequent action plans. 9) Understand the timescale: This would typically range from three months for a scoping study to up to a year for a detailed piece where data is hard to gather. Difficulties in data collection are the main cause of project delays, so if you want your project to be delivered on time then be sure to allocate enough staff time to gathering the necessary information. Once the study is completed, look again at the action plan you drafted in Step 2. Has the research uncovered any new risks, challenges or opportunities that need to be included?
Case Study: Tesco Dairy Footprint Description
Back in 2009, Tesco worked with some select members of the Tesco Sustainable Dairy Group (TSDG) to calculate the life-cycle carbon footprint of the milk sold in their stores, and they were the first retailer to share this information with customers by carbon labelling milk. This work showed them that around three quarters of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with milk are linked to the dairy farm, largely due to emissions of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) from dairy cattle. Therefore, if Tesco is to reduce the carbon footprint of dairy products, then the farm is the key place to focus. Over the last year, Tesco has collaborated with their milk processors, Arla and Wiseman, the agricultural consultancy, Promar International, and the environmental consultancy, Environmental Resources Management, to extend this work and calculate the greenhouse gas emissions from over 400 of their TSDG dairy farms. These carbon footprints are calculated from accurate information on the “inputs” to the farm (e.g. feed types and volumes) which is taken from the farm’s financial records. Figure 1: Example report produced for a farm The results have enabled Tesco to understand the variations in carbon footprints between farms, and to identify the best practices on farms with lower carbon footprints. Based on this information, Tesco have developed a set of best practice guidelines for their farmers aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as saving them money. This information was shared with the participants in the form of a farmer-friendly report explaining the individual farm’s carbon footprint, giving a breakdown by source, and benchmarking against the rest of the group (see Figure 1). The report also sets out nine best practice measures, and shows their impact to reduce carbon emissions and save cost for an average 1 million litre farm. Tesco followed this up with a series of carbon reduction workshops around the country to help farmers understand the practical opportunities to reduce emissions on farm. This is an on-going project and Tesco aim to repeat the carbon footprinting exercise later this year to understand the progress that has been made.
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Author: Danny Chivers Organisation: Best Foot Forward Created: January 2013 Last updated: May 2013
Business Case Financial Efficiency practices could lead to reduced costs for farmers e.g. an estimated £2,500 saving per year for the average farm if soya is removed from the diet of high-yielding cows
Environmental The footprint study ensured that the most significant segments of the footprint were targeted If removing soya from high-yielding cows is implemented, it could lead to greenhouse gas reductions of 89 tonnes of CO2e per farm per year
Consumer Carbon label shows the carbon footprint of the product and how this can be reduced.
Learning and Caveats Using real, farm-specific data to calculate the carbon footprints builds trust with farmers and gives credibility to the results. Finding ways to turn complex data into easy to understand communications and investing time to discuss and debate the findings and the practical cost / carbon saving options was key to gaining buy-in. This particular project relied on having a strong relationship with a large number of suppliers. Work on this scale may not be possible for all retailers or manufacturers, but it should still serve as a useful model of what is possible. Similar studies could be carried out with a smaller number of suppliers and still yield useful results and outcomes.
Resources 1. European Environment Agency: they have a useful page of further information on Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs). http://ew.eea.europa.eu/ManagementConcepts/LCA 2. GaBi: Provide life cycle assessment tools and software. http://www.gabi-software.com 3. The Global Footprint Network: Resources and advice for measuring ecological footprints. http://www.footprintnetwork.org 4. Greenhouse Gas Protocol: their website gives help and advice on carbon footprinting standards. http://www.ghgprotocol.org/ 5. The Product Sustainability Forum: Contains general advice on product sustainability from a range of companies and organisations. Product Summaries detailing the key environmental impacts of 50 typical products will be available here shortly. http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/product-sustainability-forum 6. Simapro: Provide life cycle and footprinting tools and software. http://www.simapro.co.uk/ 7. UK Government DECC/DEFRA carbon reporting guidelines: http://www.defra.gov.uk/publications/2012/07/06/ghg-2012-conversion-factors-reporting/ 8. Water Footprint Network: They have a variety of useful resources on their website, http://www.waterfootprint.org 9. ISO 14040 family of LCA standards: 14040 14044 14045 14047 14048 14049
You may also be interested in these related Action Plan/Topic Guide(s):
How to identify high sustainability, reputation, supply chain risk and resilience
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