Q Solutions Industri Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools ‘SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training ‘Training cal Tailored support Search About PRé Our company About PRE ur story Mission & values Our team, Working at PRE Our network Connect with us Contact usSearch Modelling end-of-life in the PEF approach Published 01 December, 2015 Written by Marisa Vieira PRG is dedicating an article series to the PEF initiative of the European Commission, since we are involved as technical helpdesk. Today: end-of-life modelling with material or energy recovery, a hotly debated topic ever since LCA exists. The number of scientific papers discussing this topic is huge; Google scholar gives 64000 hits. The PEF approach secks to end this discussion End-of- jife modelling: why is there so much discussion about it?In a nutshell, the problem is this: when a material is recycled, it flows from one product to the next. How should benefits and burdens of recycled material be allocated’ To the first or the second product? The same problem occurs when products are ineinerated with energy recovery: who gets the benefits of this energy, the product that is incinerated, which leads to energy generation, or the energy system that eliminates the waste? ‘There are more issues in end-of-life modelling that need to be considered and decided upon: + Recycled or reused material as input for production ‘+ Open-loop recycling + Downeycling, ic. any differences in quality between the secondary material (the recycled or reused material) and the primary material (the virgin material) ‘+ Bnergy recovery, as both electricity and heat, resulting from waste incineration ‘+ Selection of virgin material being avoided Selection of energy source being avoided Any time there is reuse, recycling or energy recovery, we need to ask: who should get the credits and impacts of recovery? My product system? Or the upstream or downstream product system connected to mine through recovery? ‘The reason this is such a hotly debated topic is that large interests are at stake for industry and policy development. One option makes products that are recycled look good. The other makes products that use recycled materials look good. Introducing the single Environmental Footprint end-of-life formula The European Commission is determined to put an end to the discussion, and is using the Environmental Footprint initiative to do so, Consistent results and alignment of goals can only be guaranteed when a single formula is consistently applied within and between product groups. ‘The EC published an end-of-life formula in its PEF and OEF guide, see image below. The formula allocates the impacts and benefits of recycling (material recovery) equally between the producer using recycled input material and the producer of the product that was recycled: a 50/50 allocation split. The formula also takes downcycling into account, the decrease of quality ofa secondary material compared to primary material, When waste is incinerated, the credits of heat and electricity recovery are fully accounted to the producer of the product that ends up in incineration. The European Commission provided specific guidance to the companies participating in this pilot phase on how to calculate this. It is hoped that this guide will reduce discussion and will help create clarity about who gets the credits. 1 from the recy% ling (or reuse) process LCI associated to the {from which the credit from avoided virgin Lc! from virgin material recycled material input ‘material input are subtracted ‘acquisition and pre- h _™ tc from the disposal of the material processing \ ™Y(-8)-] where the recycled content is taken from R The LCI arising from the energy recovery process The net LCI from the disposal of the fraction of from which avoided emissions arising from the material that has not been recycled (or reused) at substituted energy source have been subtracted Eol or handed over to an energy recovery process Moving forward with the end-of-life formula ‘This end-of-life formula is considered standard in the PEF initiative. Every pilot is following this formula as default for their baseline assessment. However, a few pilots are still testing alternative formulas, which is encouraged in the scope of the pilot phase. Since all pilot products use packaging, the Commission has established a cross-cutting working group on packaging to try to align the way packaging materials and their end-of-life are modelled and provide default data to be used. For detailed information about how the end-of-life formula of the European Environmental Footprint initiative is defined, see the PEF or OEF guides in the 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).Everybody happy? Well, yes and no. The mid-term conference on the Environmental Footprint pilot phase, with 200 attendees, seemed to be in agreement that standardisation is needed. However, there are concerns that the formula does not really reward recycling. So the discussion is, for the time being, still ongoing. Learn more about PEF you want to learn more about our role in the PEF initiative, please contact us. See other episodes ofthis series . sme changer in + DEE: End-of-life modeling ‘© PEE: The role of the representative pro * PEF: Hotspot analysis © PEF: Data requirements * PEE: Governanes rf © PEF: Impact assessment PEF: Carbon modeling PEF: Environmental footprint of organizations PEF: Guidance for modeling the use stage PEF: Energy and transport data PEF: State of the debate and outlook PEE: The end of the pilor phase EF: Transition phase Marisa Vieira Principal Consultant The time of the industrial revolution is over. Now itis time for the green revolution to go full steam ahead! Everybody needs to be involved in this process, therefore I aim to guide individuals and businesses in understanding the trade-offs between impacts. This will help them make informed decisions, which will truly help sustainable living thrive." Contact the author Discover our stories Axticle We fe cycle information gecessibe to all By Marisa Vieira Aaticle ilisy at the core: moving from gut feeling to facts By Brie Mieras Axtiele What the revised EN 15804 EPD standard means for you By Anne Gaasbeek Stay up to date with our newsletter Section Name *Industry Email * Section Newsletters * ‘J | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ ‘Yl want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates’ Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters. Submit ja iQ] Fact-based sustainability Contact us Newsletter © 2022 PRé Sustainability B.V. All rights reserved. PRE Sustainability is a Climate Neutral Enterprise Legal Cookies Privacy,Q Solutions Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training Tr ng calendar ilored support Search About PRé Our company About PRé Our story, Mission & values Our team Working at PRE Our network Connect with usNewsletter Search PEF: a game changer in LCA Published 11 August, 2015 Written byMark Goedkoop The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) approach is a game-changing standard in LCA, with effects and ramifications that we are only just beginning to understand. That's why PRé is devoting an article series to PEF, discussing it one aspect at a time, Today: how did PEF come about? And what are some of the lessons we have learned so far? A community splintered by debates For 25 years, the LCA community has been working on developing a good understanding of how to model the life cycle of a product and perform an impact assessment, Although the many debates among experts resulted in great insights and concepts, there has never been real consensus or simplification. ISO standards, the backbone of the community and the robust basis for the debates, allow for too many ways of modelling and understanding the world; they leave too much room for interpretation. This was most notable in Environmental Product regulations: the ISO 14040/44 standards left too much room for personal decisions, which is why the ISO 14025 standard was introduced. This standard introduced a procedure to create product category rules (PCRs) based on a stakeholder consultation process. The standard was a success, and now there are over 40 Programme Operators that issue PCRs — often for the same or overlapping product categories. A consequence of this ‘success’ is that there is little coordination, which led to confusion, double work and lack of confidence with the consumers. Towards a commonly accepted methodology In 2008 and 2009, Themal, organiser of the PEF World Forum, and PRé organised several roundtables for Programme Operators to try to get to a common base. This roundtable inspired the UK government to align the PAS and the GHG protocol. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created a document that proposed a common base for all PCRs. The lack of consistency and confusion regarding EPDs was recognised by the EU to be a significant stumbling block for the creation of a common market for sustainable products. The EU’s response was to start the Single Market for Green Products initiative to develop a very comprehensive approach for creating product and organisation environmental footprints (PEF and OEF). This was done by the European Commission DG Environment (EC DG ENV), borrowing much from the EPA guide mentioned above. PRE was commissioned by DG ENV to support the pilot testing of the development of the PEF and OEF methodologies in 2011, the outcome of which was used for further improvement of the methodologies. Some lessons learned A second pilot phase followed the first, and there is much we learned from them. Below, we list some of the lessons we learned, to be described in more depth in later editions of this series: «It doesn’t work to print numbers on a product to represent its climate change impact, ozone depletion potential, ete. People do not understand the numbers — they have no reference. Is 283 gram of COp equivalents a problem? Is that high or low? And is it better to have more of that or less? + The starting point of all analysis should be communication. Information needs to have a reference point: is this product average, better than average or worse? An example of where this works well is energy labelling, where people understand that a fridge with an A label is preferable over a fridge with an F label. + The benchmarks of product groups cannot be set by the EC. Instead, they should be set the companies that produce these products, in collaboration. This is why the current 27 pilots were only allowed to start if they represented companies that together have a market share of 50% or more of the EU market in that product group. * Trade does not stop at borders. In contrast to many EPD schemes, developed on a national basis and often not translated into internationally accepted languages, the EC clearly invites companies fromother regions to take part. The pilot on solar cells, for instance, contains Chinese, US-based and European companies. The pilot on IT equipment is led by Japanese industries. + Credibility can only be maintained through strict data requirements. Unlike the requirements of most EPD schemes, PEF data requirements are very strict indeed. The EC has also contracted verification services to verify both data and results. * The costs for any approach should be low to also allow SMEs and companies from developing countries to participate. Considerable efforts are being made to ensure that generating PEF results will work with a relatively simple cookbook; just enter some primary data and activity data that fulfils the requirements and, at least that is the idea, you will get your PEF compatible results. + Data should be free, and the EC will make a significant amount of data available free of charge. ‘+ The old way of debating methodology among experts does not work — the pilots need to reach consensus. An example is the cattle model working group: the pilots on meat, dairy, leather, animal feed and pet food all had to model the life cycle of cattle up to the slaughterhouse, and the EC invited these pilots to develop consensus to prevent them from each developing their own model. It nearly worked, although in the end, the EC had to make the final verdict. It is another sign we are entering into a new era, though. If there is a conflict or stalemate, it’s not the methodology experts, but industry itself that will cut through the clutter. This article is the first in a series of articles that will discuss a number of key aspects of and developments within the PEF methodology, and explain how the EC environmental footprint initiative will be a game- changer in the LCA community. At PRé, we will be supporting this initiative and developing solutions for it. Learn more about PEF Ifyou want to learn more about our role in the PEF initiative, please contact us. See other episodes of this series: © PEF: A game changer in LCA + PEE life modeling © PEF: The role of the representative product + PEF: Hotspot analys « PEF: Data requirements jovernance structure Impact assessment ‘arbon modeling « PEF: Environmental footprint of organizations nce for modeling the use stage ry and transport * PEF: State of the debate and outlook The end of the pilor phase © EF: Transition phase Mark Goedkoop Founder When I established PRé in 1990 I ran a design consultancy, then I decided to do ecodesign. But, how do I tell the good from the bad? And how can I measure “eco”? So I started on a journey together with a few pioneers in the emerging LCA scene and gave up designing. I realized then that these same questions need to be answered by any company embarking on the route to more sustainable products and services, preferably in a scientific, honest, and businesslike way. Providing good transparent tools, data, and methodologies to empower organizations to make the transition to sustainability, that is my drive. Contact the author Discover our stories Article‘We have a vision: tr formation accessible to all ‘By Marisa Vieira Article ¢ the core: moving from gut feeling to facts By Erie Mieras Article ‘What the revised EN 18804 EPD standard means for you By Anne Gaasbeek Stay up to date with our newsletter Section Name * Industry Email * Section Newsletters * “Z| | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ ‘¥_ | want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates’ Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters Submit Fact-based sustainabilityContact us © 2022 PRé Sustainability B.V. All rights reserved. PRé Sustainability is a Climate Neutral EnterpriseQ Solutions Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training Tr ng calendar ilored support Search About PRé Our company About PRé Our story, Mission & values Our team Working at PRE Our network Connect with usNewsletter Search The role of the representative product in the PEF approach Life cycle nent Published 01 February, 2016Written by Marisa The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) approach is a game-changing initiative in LCA, with effects and ramifications that we are only just beginning to understand. Today in PRé’s PEF series: What is a European representative product? And how do these products play a crucial role in the development of specific rules for product environmental footprinting of the various product groups? What are the product category rules and why are they made? Before the PEF initiative started, LCA has been used in various ways to assess the environmental impact of product life cycles. LCA studies often take all life eycle activities into account because LCA practitioners don’t know the relevant impact drivers ahead of time. Even if they try to identify where to focus data collection efforts by relying on literature about assessments of products from the same product group, they may miss the mark. To try to standardise the way products of the same product group are assessed, the product category rules (PCRs) were developed. They are the first attempt at this kind of standardisation, PCRs are often developed voluntarily by a producer or a limited group of stakeholders, which means the resulting PCR may be representative for that single product — not for other producers or for the entire product group. Introducing the representative product — PEFCRs As a response to the issue of limited applicability, the European Commission introduced an Environmental Footprint (EF) Pilot Phase project to develop PEFCRs (product environmental footprint category rules) -PCRs following the rules of the PEF guide. For PEFCRs, the rule was established that at least 50% of the ‘market has to be involved in their development. To be able to create such a PEFCR, the PEF pilot phase introduced the concept of ‘representative product’, To determine what to include in the PEFCR of a product group, the European Commission required a screening LCA study of the representative product.”. This enables a better understanding of the environmental impacts within a product group and guarantees a fair comparison between products. The representative product is, in my opinion, the solution we have been looking for. The European Commission provides two options for defining the representative product: a real product sold on the EU market or a virtual product, which doesn’t exist in reality. This virtual product should be modelled on the average EU market share of all existing technologies and materials of the product group in question. The virtual product approach does carry the risk that technologies with relatively small market shares are overlooked. This is why it is so important to do a sensitivity analysis once the representative product is determined. The key purpose of a sensitivity analysis is to identify the data and assumptions that have the biggest influence on a result. Most PEF pilot projects chose the virtual representative product approach, and I am particularly fan of it myself, The answer to product Environmental Footprint standardisation After the representative product has been determined, a PEF screening LCA study is done to form the basis of the PEFCR. The study assesses the representative product and various scenarios to: + Identify environmental hotspots. The PEFCR will include a list of most relevant life cycle stages and processes. Practitioners will know where to focus their data collection efforts and companies will know where to focus their improvement opportunities. + Identify relevant impact categories. The default EF impact assessment method in the EF pilot phase includes a total of 16 impact categories. By identifying a small number of particularly relevant impact themes, companies will find it easier both to interpret LCA results and to act upon those impacts. + Facilitate the comparison between products that fall within the same product group. Until now, comparison between products could only be done within a single study. Thanks to the standardisationmade possible by a representative product based on all technologies in the PEF sereening study, it becomes much easier to compare products of the same group. + Facilitate the development of benchmarks. The European Commission is testing the development of ‘benchmarks. For these, I believe that the average European product is the right reference to use. 1am really excited about this development and I believe that this is the solution for standardising and simplifying LCA practice while maintaining its high quality. Some pilot projects are keen about this, approach and intend to use it going further. For detailed information on how of a representative product is defined, see the Guidance for the implementation of the EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEP) during the Environmental Footprint (EF) lot phase. Learn more about PEF If you want to learn more about our role in the PE series: initiative, please contact us. See other episodes of this + PEE:A game changer in LCA ig © PEF: The role of the representative product PEF: Carbon modeling PEF: Environmental footprint of organizations « PEF: Guidance for modeling the use stage +2 ergy and transport data + PE Sf th e look + PEF: The end of the pilor phase EF: Transition phase Marisa Vieira Principal Consultant The time of the industrial revolution is over. Now it is time for the green revolution to go full steam ahead! Everybody needs to be involved in this process, therefore I aim to guide individuals and businesses in understanding the trade-offs between impacts. This will help them make informed decisions, which will truly help sustainable living thrive." Contact the author Discover our stories up an LCA study By Marisa Vieira Article Blockchain and our planet: location of energy use By Ellen MeijerArticle ‘Why the circular economy and LCA make each other stronger By Emilia Ingemarsdotter Stay up to date with our newsletter Section Name * Industry Email * Section Newsletters * “Z| | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ ‘J | want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates’ Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters Submit Fact-based sustainability Contact us Newsletter © 2022 PRé Sustainability B.V. All rights reserved. PRé Sustainability is a Climate Neutral EnterpriseLegal Cookies PrivacyQ Solutions Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training Tr ng calendar ilored support Search About PRé Our company About PRé Our story, Mission & values Our team Working at PRE Our network Connect with usNewsletter Search Hotspot analysis in the PEF approach Product environmental footprint (PEF) Published 08 March, 2016Written by Marisa Although LCA is ideal for identifying all the hotspots within a product's life cyele or an organization's value chain, it did not provide clear guidance on how to select the most relevant ones. Now, from the PEF pilots, the European Commission has established guidelines to select the most relevant hotspots and determine which data should be collected. ‘Nowadays, most businesses are committed to reducing their carbon or environmental footprint. To do this, it is important that they focus their improvement efforts on the activities that contribute most to the total environmental impact of a product’s life cycle or of an organization’s value chain, Hotspots are processes and activities that have a large contribution to the total environmental impact. Life eycle assessment is one way to identify these hotspots, and doing so has always been the focus of LCA studies, But LCA is not consistent in this, as there are no clear rules to help you find out which hotspots are the most relevant for you to focus on. So what's different about hotspot identification in the PEF initiative? Clear guidelines for hotspot analysis in the PEF initiative In the PEF pilot phase, four types of hotspots are considered — you can see them on the image below. Two of the hotspots are relevant for determining data collection and data quality requirements, while the other two are relevant for external communication. Of these four, three are relevant for internal decision-making at the company level. Hotspots: relevant for internal decision making at company level Most relevant ff Most relevant |] Most relevant Wenscocus impact category [| life cycle stage _ ||] process Pucci rita Relevant for external Relevant for decision making in communication data requirements ‘Traditional LCA has been used to identify hotspots for a long time, But what are the five most relevant ones? Or the top three? Or the ones that cause 90% of the total impact? The answer is simple: it depends. Itdepends on the LCA practitioner and the choices he or she makes, as there are no clear rules in LCA on how to do this. In the scope of the PEF pilot phase, all that has changed. With PEF, a hotspot can be identified at different levels of granularity: impact category, life cycle stage, process, or elementary flow. ‘A clear threshold is proposed: when ranked from most to least impact, the life cycle stages, processes, or elementary flows that together make up 80% of the cumulative impact to any most relevant impact category should be considered relevant, Normalized and weighted results should be used to identify the most relevant impact categories, although others may be added on basis of expert judgment. Lastly, it’s important to mention that these rules apply for both, Product as well as Organisation Environmental Footprint. ‘The table documents the Identification of most relevant impact categories, life eyele stages, processes and elementary flows as proposed by the European Commission for PEF and OEF: Source: “Guidance for the implementation of the EU ProductEnvironmental Footprint (PEF) during the Environmental Footprint (EF) pilot phase. Version 6.3 ~ December 2017” So, where to focus your improvement efforts? In the PEF pilot phase, the Commission requests the identification of the most relevant contributors. This offers you the focus needed to improve the environmental performance of your product (PEF) or organization (OEF). To illustrate how this would work in practice, let’s look at an example. Most relevant impact categories After calculating the normalized and weighted results of all impact categories, you rank them from high to low. Those contributing cumulatively to 80% of the total normalized and weighted results were selected. In this case, the most relevant impact categories are: Climate change, Particulate matter, Acidification, Terrestrial eutrophication, Land use, and Fossil resource use, a ec er Impact.categery, einer Climate change Acidification Particulate matter Resource use, fossils ‘ion, terrestrial Eutrophication, marine 2.0E-05 5% - Photochemical ozone formation 116-05 3% - Water use 1,1E-05 3% . Resource use, mineral and metals 8.9E-06 2% - Eutrophication, freshwater 4,7E-06 1% - lonising radiation 2.9E-06 1% 7 Ozone depletion 1.8E-07 0% . Most relevant life cycle stages and processesFor each most relevant impact category, characterized results are caleulated and the life eycle stages are ranked from high to low. Those contributing cumulatively to at least 80% of the characterized impacts are selected. In the case presented below, the most relevant life cycle stages become: Raw materials acq and pre-processing, product manufacturing, and End-of-life. The most relevant processes are identified in a similar way, for each most relevant impact category and a cumulative impact of at least 80%, CO Toot oe Si eT Climate change 54% 10% 1% 7% 28% Acidification 93% 1% 0% 3% 2% Particulate matter 93% 1% 1% 3% 2% Resource use, fossils 40% 13% 4% 8% 36% Eutrophication, freshwater 96% 0%, 0% 0% 3% Land use 97% 0% 3% 0% 0% Implications of PEF hotspot identification The PEF pilot phase will soon start to test using the most relevant impact categories and life cycle stages in external communication. More importantly, identifying the most relevant processes and impact categories has implications for the data collection and data quality requirements. The data needs in the PEF pilot phase are addressed in another article, Learn more about PEF If you want to leam more about our role in the PEF initiati series: , please contact us. See other episodes of this —— A game changer in LCA PEF: End-of-life modeling PEF The role of the representative product PEF: Hotspot anal PEF: Data requirement PEF: Environmental footprint of organizations PEF: Guidance for modeling the use stage PEF: Energy and transport data PEF: State of the debate and outlook PEF: The end of the pilor phase EF: Transition phase Marisa Vieira Principal Consultant The time of the industrial revolution is over. Now itis time for the green revolution to go full steam ahead! Everybody needs to be involved in this process, therefore I aim to guide individuals and businesses in understanding the trade-offs between impacts, This will help them make informed decisions, which will truly help sustainable living thrive."Contact the author Discover our stories Article Consider your audience when doing LCA, By Ellen Meijer Customer Case Helping the floriculture sector reduce its environmental footprint Stay up to date with our newsletter Section Name * Industry Email * Section Newsletters * ‘¥| | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ ‘YI want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates’ Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters SubmitFact-based sustainability Contact us Newsletter © 2022 PRé Sustainability B.V. All rights reserved. PRé Sustainability is a Climate Neutral Enterprise Legal lookies: PrivacyQ Solutions Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training Tr ng calendar ilored support Search About PRé Our company About PRé Our story, Mission & values Our team Working at PRE Our network Connect with usNewsletter Search Data requirements in the PEF approach Product environmental footprint (PEF) Published 13 April, 2016Written by Marisa Vi For an LCA study to be compliant with the ISO 14040 and 14044 standards, it needs to include the data quality requirements and a data quality analysis. A lot of LCA practitioners who provide these required elements don’t derive actual value from them, though. They often do it to tick all the boxes. But why is this? And how is the PEI changing this? It’s obvious that high-quality data is crucial if you want to get sound results from your assessment of product life cycles and organization value chains. LCA practitioners are doing the data quality analysis and setting the requirements anyway, so why don’t they get anything out of it? The answer again is simple: there are no clear and quantifiable data quality requirements to be met. This article is focused on what is most novel and important with regards to data quality criteria in the PEF initiative. Materiality Approach for Data Quality Requirements In The PEF Initiative In LCA, there is traditionally a distinction between the foreground and background system of a product life cycle, The foreground refers to the activities under the operational control of the company conducting the LCA whereas the background refers to upstream and downstream activities. The PEF initiative is providing concrete instructions for dealing with data quality and data collection. Here, the principle of materiality is applied, namely, focus where it matters. It names two relevant elements for determining which data you need to collect and what level of quality it needs to have: ‘+ Level of influence: how much influence does the company performing the study have on them? Any company in a product’s value chain can perform an EF study of the product and, depending on where they are, they will have control of different activities, The manufacturing company of the product has control of the manufacturing activities whereas retail has control of the retail activities. + Impact relevance: what are the most relevant processes driving the environmental profile of the product? If some of the activities controlled by a company cause little environmental impact, there is no point in investing to collect company-specific data. So, primary data is not required for the complete foreground system but it is for environmental hotspots Further, there are six data quality criteria, scored in five levels from very good (score 1) to very poor (score 5). The data quality score of a dataset is the average of the scores of all six data quality criteria Completeness, parameter uncertainty, and methodological appropriateness, and consistency are generic criteria, Technological, geographical, and time-related representativeness are context-specific criteria. The generic data quality criteria are fully described in the PEF and OFF methods; their data quality tables are applicable to all EF studies. The other three data quality criteria depend on context. Therefore, PEECRs must provide further guidance on data quality assessment, explaining which data quality levels and ratings are to be used to calculate context-specific data quality ratings (DQRs). In addition, three more aspects are included in the quality assessment: review, documentation compliance with ILCD, and nomenclature compliance with ILCD. Required Elements Of Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCRs) When developing PEFCRs for a specific product group, some specific elements must be included+ The minimum list of processes to be covered by company-specific data. For instance, gate-to-gate activities and processes. This helps avoid that a PEF profile will be calculated solely on the basis of default data + The list of the activity data that the applicant should declare. This is data about activities that are likely to be under the operational control of the company. For instance, x kWh of electricity used in the company’s manufacturing site. + Context-specific data quality tables. This is where the six data quality criteria come into play. The data quality tables for the generic criteria are already set. The PEFCR must determine the data quality tables for context-specific criteria that need to be provided by the applicant. For instance, that data of aperiod of 3 to 5 years prior to the period under study have a quality level of 2 out of 5, so good quality. + Default datasets to be used for all processes except those that are under your operational control and have been identified as the most relevant (see situation 1 below). Providing these defaults datasets means that the only differences in PEF profiles that follow their PEFCR result from differences in company-specific primary data, This is what makes it possible and even crucial for PEF profiles to meet the comparability objective set by the PEF initiative. The European Commission is now purchasing data to ensure that default secondary datasets can consistently be used by all that would like to calculate PEF or OFF profiles for free. In itself, this is already fantastic news for businesses that so far have had to purchase their own commercial life cycle inventory (LCI) data. But this revolutionary action from the Commission may also completely change the landscape of LCI data provision in the future! We'll just have to wait and see. Implications For EF Studies And Beyond If your company is implementing a PEFCR, you need to check for each process in your value chain if it falls, into the ‘most relevant’ category, and how much influence your company has over it. The decision tree below can help. Mapping your company's level of influence on processes Determine the level ef influence by your company to know on which processes {you shoul focus. Once it is clear in which situation the process falls and whether it’s in the ‘most relevant’ category, you can follow the rules from the data needs matrix (DNM) below.Po mits oyreresucaraere sonst] or aavtnorory aioe, maura om ose ie tyme roar vtoeah ee sr anayecere Source: European Commission. ‘Guidance for the implementation of the EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) during the Environmental Footprint (EF) pilot phase. Version 5.2’ — February 2016. There are a total of 4 options that summarize the data needs matrix: « Situation 1. Primary non-aggregated (with some transparency) data is required and the data quality score must be high (at least 1.6). + Situation 2. Let's imagine, for example, that you purchase a material from your supplier and this has been identified as a most relevant process in your PEFCR. If your supplier is not willing to provide a PEF-compliant dataset with some transparency for the material you purchase, you are asked to replace from the default secondary dataset using the country specific electricity mix of the material’s manufacturing site as well as replace the dataset used for the transport and the distance it travels from your supplier to your manufacturing site. * Situation 3. You are required to use the default secondary dataset (provided in the PEFCR) with a DQR of at least 3.0 * Situation 4. For processes that are not considered the most relevant and are not run by your company, the data quality requirements are less strict (DQR <4.0) and the default secondary dataset (provides the PEFCR) must also be used. Then, the LCA applicant shall re-calculate the DQR for all the datasets used for the most relevant processes, the new ones created, and other processes in situation 1 (so all except processes that have not been identified as most relevant and that are in situations 2 or 3), Data Requirements Consistency — Another Milestone For The Comparability Objective nal product category rules (PCRs) are already very much aligned in scope, with the purpose of setting similar rules for all products within a product group. However, PCRs are not very prescriptive in their data quality requirements. PCRs do not have a list of default secondary datasets to be used, nor do they specify which default activity data a company needs to use. These two requirements, however, are in my opinion absolutely essential if we want to achieve comparability between PEF profiles that were not assessed. in the same study. Because the PEF initiative is now only in its pilot phase, we will still have to wait to see how this evolves. I believe that the data quality requirements defined in the PEF initiative are a very important — or even defining — step in standardizing and guaranteeing the comparability of PEF profiles. One thing is certain:people following the EF data requirements and analysis in a PEF study won't just be doing it to tick all the boxes. Learn more about PEF If you want to learn more about our role in the PEF initiative, please contact us. See other episodes of this series: nger in LCA ife modeling PEE Hotspot analysis PEF: Data requirements PEF: Governance structure Impact assessment ‘arbon modeling PEF: Energy and transport data PEF: State of th and outlook PEF: The end of the pilor phase EE: Transition phase Marisa Vieira Principal Consultan’ The time of the industrial revolution is over, Now it is time for the green revolution to go full steam ahead! Everybody needs to be involved in this process, therefore I aim to guide individuals and businesses in understanding the trade-offs between impacts. This will help them make informed decisions, which will truly help sustainable living thrive." Contact the author Discover our stories Article ‘Agri-food: how LCA may play a role in the future food system By Ellie Williams Environmental footprint transition phase: what is happening now that the EF pilot phase is finished? By Marisa Vieira Stay up to date with our newsletterSection Name * Industry Email * Section Newsletters * J] | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ ‘J | want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates’ Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters Submit Fact-based sustainability ntact Newsletter © 2022 PRé Sustainability B.V. All rights reserved. PRé Sustainability is a Climate Neutral Enterprise Legal CookiesQ Solutions Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training Tr ng calendar ilored support Search About PRé Our company About PRé Our story, Mission & values Our team Working at PRE Our network Connect with usNewsletter Search Towards environmental footprint rules — PEF governance structure Product environmental footprint (PEF) Published 30 May, 2016Written by Marisa Vieira In the testing of the Environmental Footprint Rules, there are many stakeholders involved. It is a well thought governance structure established for a transparent and collaborative framework. This piece aims at describing the governance structure of the EF rules pilot phase. Leads Gives expert advice Support Align & harmonise Cattle macel WG + Construction products WG + Packaging WG ‘Comment & give feedback European Commission — Leader The European Commission has an overall lead of the EF pilot phase: + DG-ENV: coordinates the pilot phase and gives the political direction + JRC-IES: has the methodological lead and is also coordinating a few pilots Steering Committee (SC) — Approver The SC’s main responsibility is the approval of the documents submitted by the pilots, e.g. the draft PEFCRVOEFSR. The SC is constituted by one member of each pilot, representatives of the EC, one representative from cach EU member state, EFTA, or candidate country, and one representative from key stakeholder groups (consumers, SMEs, environmental NGOs, business and international organizations). Technical Advisory Board (TAB) — Expert Advisor ‘The Techincal Advisory Board provides technical support and advice to the SC members that have appointed them. Each member of the SC may appoint | expert to be a member of the Technical Advisory Board. The TAB expresses its opinion and input to the Commission on technical issues that are of cross-cutting relevance to several EF pilots. The detailed rules of procedure applied to EF Pilot SC and TAB can be consulted here.Pilot Technical Secretariats (TS) — Testers There are 26 active pilots that have volunteered to test the development of the rules and to develop PEFCRs (24) — e.g. dairy products, and OEFSRs (2), e.g. retail. Each pilot TS has one coordinator, meaning that this person is the contact person for the pilot, and various members, which can be manufacturing companies, other actors in the productisector value chain, NGOs, ete, Most TSs (73%) cover more than 50% of the EU market Stakeholders — Feedback Providers There are fixed moments in which documents, e.g. draft PEFCR/OEFSR, are released for stakeholder consultation. Anyone can register as a stakeholder and submit comments during the period indicated on the wiki of the EF pilot phase. The pilots need to consider these comments and provide an answer as to how these will be tackled. For the final round of consultations (expected between June and September 2016), the documents will be published on the website of DG-ENV as well. Cross-cutting Working Groups — Harmonization There is a number of cross-cutting working groups established in the pilot phase which aim(ed) at creating horizontal rules for issues that are common to several pilots. These working groups (WG) are: + Cattle Model WG: to ensure consistency in modelling the cow as a common element between dairy, meat, leather, feed and pet food pilots, e.g. to define the multi-functionality rules at farm and at slaughterhouse level. This activity is complete and the final result is available on the wiki. + Construction products WG: to contribute to better understanding the differences between the requirements of EN15804 and the PEF method, paving the way reconcile current differences in the next revision of both documents. + Packaging WG: to provide guidance on packaging related modelling and data issues in the Environmental Footprint pilot phase. Last meeting planned for 12 May 2016. Multiple Vendors — Support Providers The Commission is contracting, through calls for tenders, vendors to support activities related to the EF pilot phase. Examples include, e.g. the Technical Helpdesk (of which PRé is one of the partners), Support of the communication testing, Development of SME tools, etc. The Big Question Is. What will be the govemance structure of Environmental Footprinting after the pilot phase? Of course, the governance structure will most likely change after the pilot phase. How it will change depends on the coming developments, so time will tell... I guess we'll just have to be patient to know the answer, Lastly, in this piece, I limited my description to the governance structure and stakeholders. The development rules will be illustrated in a coming piece. Stay tuned! Learn more about PEF Ifyou want to lea more about our role in the PEF initiative, please contact us. See other episodes of this series: nger in LCA ife modeling The role of the representative product * PEF: Hotspot analysis.PEF: Data requirements PEF: Governance structure PEF: Carbon modeling PEF: Environmental footprint of organizations PEF: Guidance for modeling the use stage ergy and transport data PEE: State of the debate and outlook PEF: The end of the pilor phase EF: Transition phase Marisa Vieira Principal Consultant The time of the industrial revolution is over. Now itis time for the green revolution to go full steam ahead! Everybody needs to be involved in this process, therefore I aim to guide individuals and businesses in understanding the trade-offs between impacts. This will help them make informed decisions, which will truly help sustainable living thrive." in thor Discover our stories Article By Ellie Williams Customer Case Helping the floriculture sector reduce its environmental footprint Article Environmental foot int transition phase: what is happening now that the EF pil ‘By Marisa Vieira Stay up to date with our newsletter Section Name * Industry Email *Section Newsletters * “Z| | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ YI want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates’ Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters Submit Fact-based sustainability Contact us © 2022 PRé Sustainability B.V, All rights reserved. PRE Sustainability is a Climate Neutral Enterprise Legal Cookies PrivacyQ Solutions Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training Tr ng calendar ilored support Search About PRé Our company About PRé Our story, Mission & values Our team Working at PRE Our network Connect with usNewsletter cee Y in the PEF initiative Impact assessment in the PEF initiative Product environmental footprint (PEF) Published 04 July, 2016Written by Marisa Vi One of the goals of the Product Environmental Footp! to offer a standard for impact assessment, so it is easier and more meaningful to compare products. This is the story of how the initiative chose its recommended set of methods from among the huge number of available options. AnLCA study sometimes ends up including up to 2000 elementary flows, each with its own potential environmental impacts. These potential impacts are evaluated for magnitude and significance in the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) phase, using one of a large variety of LCIA methods. Some of them are focused on a single issue, e.g. carbon footprint, whereas some encompass multiple environmental themes, Some measure the potential impacts at the end of the environmental mechanism (endpoint level), whereas others do it at the midpoint level. Some stop at the level of characterization and others choose to include the optional steps of normalization and weighting. This range of available methods was a challenge for the European Commission’s Environmental Footprint initiative, It is vital to use a single impact assessment method since one of the objectives of the PEF initiative was to establish a way to compare environmental footprints. Which LCIA method should be used for environmental footprinting? Baseline EF impact assessment method Providing a recommendation for a single EF impact assessment method requires scientific research and extensive expert debates on each of the four steps of LCLA: classification, characterization, normalization, weighting, Classification and characterization The first two steps of LCIA are classification and characterization. In 2011, as part of the ILCD Handbook, the European Commission published Recommendations for Life Cvcle Impact Assessment in the European Context. The document reports how existing impact assessment models were evaluated at midpoint and endpoint levels per impact category according to a set of criteria, including scientific qualities, applicability to LCT datasets, and stakeholder acceptance. The report’s recommended methods to use in the European context were adopted as bascline EF impact assessment methods for the PEF and organization environmental footprint (OEF). To reflect recent developments of impact assessment, the methods for a few impact categories were modified. The chosen approach is a midpoint-level method, with a list of characterization factors that can be found here (version 2.0). For the EF Rules pilot phase, the baseline method is used with 16 impact categories. The table below shows the impact categories, the scientific studies used to determine them, and the units in which the impacts are expressed.ere ae ro os Peer Enns Pen . Radiativefording asGlobal kgCO:e, Baseline madel of 100 years Clirate change Warming Potential of the IPCC (based on IPCC (@ne100) 2013) Ozone depletion Ozone Depletion Potential kgCFC-11.-; Steady-state ODPs as in (00P) (WMO 1999) Human toxicity, Comparative Toxic Unitfor_ CTUh USEtox model Rosenbaum cancer humans (CTU) exal, 2008) Human toxicity, Comparative Toxic Unit for CTUh USEzox model Rosenbaum noncancer humans (CTU) etal, 2008) articulate matter Impact on human health dseaseincidence PMmethod recomended by UNEP (UNEP 2016) Tonising radiation, Human exposure 1a Human heskh effect model human health efficiency relative to U>* as developed by Dreicer etal 1995 (Frischknecht eta, 2000) Photochemical Troposphericozone kgNMVOC LOTOSELROS model (Van ‘ozone formation, concentration increase Zelmet a, 2008) a5 human health implemented in ReCiPe 2008 Acidification Accumulated Exceedance mol Htes Accumulated Exceedance o) ‘Geppala ec al. 2006, Posch et a, 2008) Accumulated Exceedance rol Nw ‘Accumulated Exceedance oy ‘Geppalé ex al. 2006, Posch et ‘a 2008) Fraction of nutrients kgP oc EUTREND model (Srulis etal, reaching freshwater end 2009) asimplemented in compartment ®) ReCiPe Fraction of nutrients keNe EUTREND model Seruiis etal, reaching marine end 2009) as implemented in compartment (N) ReCiPe Comparative Toxic Unitfor CTUe USEzox model, Rosenbaum ecosystems (CTU) 2008) + Soil quality index + Dimensionless Soi qualityindex based on + Biotic production @ LANCA Beck er al. 2010 and + Erosionresisance + _‘kgbiotic Bos etal. 2016) + Mechanical fation production + Groundwater + kgsoll replenishment +o water om groundwater Water use User deprivation potential m!world ws ‘Avcilable Water REmaining (deprivarion-weighted (AWARE) as recommended by ‘water consumption) UNEP, 2016 Abiotic resource depletion kgSb og ML2002 Guinée et al, Resource use, eee (AD? ultimate resenes) BOD end ven Der eat Resource use, fossils Abiotic resourcedepletion M) ML 2002 Guinée et a, ~fossil fuels (ADP-fossil) 2002) and van Oers etal. 2002 List of recommended models at midpoint, together with their indicator, unit and source. Highlighted rows: the differences compared to the PEF guide (2013). Normalization and weighting The EF pilot phase will use the European normalization factors listed here as the baseline, based on a 2014 technical report by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, The report describes the territorial production-based inventory for the European Union. PRé was involved in developing the accompanying database.Mandatory Optional In the EF pilot phase, the use of single scores is also being explored. To obtain single scores from a multi- impact approach, weighting needs to be applied. The weighting set to be used was developed as hybrid evidence- and judgment-based weighting set that includes also aspects of the robustness of the results (the weighting report can be downloaded here and the weighting set here). Strengths and limitations of the recommendations Among the strengths of the recommendations, the following two can be named: + Transparent and scientifically sound recommendations. The recommended models and characterisation factors are the result of a scientifically sound and robust study. The process of making the recommendations was designed to be transparent: there was public consultation and opportunity for interested stakeholders to provide comments and feedb: + Spatial differentiation available for some impact categories. Namely acidification, terrestrial eutrophication, land use and water scarcity — spatially differentiated characterisation factors are being used. This means that there are different characterisation factors per country, at least for the EU member states. For instance, for the role of airborne emission of ammonia in acidification, the difference between countries is almost three orders of magnitude. On the other hand, the selection procedure also has some limitations: + Several of the impact categories received a low level of recommendation. They should be applied with caution, and may even need to be excluded while calculating a single score and testing communication vehicles, * Not all environmental areas are addressed by the default method. Biodiversity, for instance, is not covered by default, Instead, each pilot explores the assessment of biodiversity and reports it as additional environmental information, e.g. with a proxy based on forest management systems by intermediate paper products, + Not all elementary flows are characterised, which makes it impossible to include their potential impacts. Chemicals are a typical example, as new chemicals are released to the market at high speed. To close this gap, the laundry detergents pilot is trying to characterise important detergent ingredients during the course of the pilot. + A.common LCIA challenge is the mismatch between the LCI inventory and the LCIA method, This is also the case here. For the baseline EF impact assessment method, problems arise with the use of spatially differentiated characterisation factors. Many are still not used in current life cycle inventory databases. In my opinion, the accuracy and precision of the impact assessment method should be leading, + In the pilot phase, the identification of the most relevant impact categories is done starting from the normalised and weighted results of each representative product or organisation. There are still extensive debates on the use of normalisation and weighting to define the most relevant impact categories. Damage modelling would considerably reduce this problem because it produces only three scores. However, the Commission has so far not adopted this alternative. Future outlook The field of life cycle impact assessment is evolving very rapidly. Many new characterization models have been developed since the recommendations were made in 2011. The EF pilots are aware of this: while the choices outlined in this article were an excellent first step in the direction of accuracy and standardization, the pilots aren’t standing still. Many are currently using alternative methods for sensitivity analysis.The Commission is also aware of the progress being made. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre is working on an update of LCIA methods on toxicity. Learn more about PEF If you want to lean more about our role in the PEF initiative, please contact us. See other episodes of this series: in LCA ame chang: ife modeling PEE: Hotspot analysis. PEF: Data requirements PEF: Governance . mpact assessment * PEF: Carbon modeling footprint of organi: PEF: Guidance for modelin; PEF: Energy and transport data PEF: State of the and outlook PEF: The end of the pilor phase EF: Transition phase Principal Consultant The time of the industrial revolution is over, Now it is time for the green revolution to go full steam ahead! Everybody needs to be involved in this process, therefore I aim to guide individuals and businesses in understanding the trade-offs between impacts. This will help them make informed decisions, which will truly help sustainable living thrive." Contact the author Discover our stories Article ‘Agricfood: how LCA may play a role in the future food system By Ellie Williams Atticle Consider your audience when doing LCA By Ellen Meijer Customer Case Helping the floriculture sector reduce its environmental footprint Stay up to date with our newsletterSection Name * Industry Email * Section Newsletters * “Z| | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ ‘J | want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates’ Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters Submit Fact-based sustainabi Contact us Newsletter © 2022 PRé Sustainability B.V. All rights reserved. PRé Sustainability is a Climate Neutral Enterprise Legal CookiesPrivacyFact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable comps Sustainable sectors Tools ‘SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training ‘Training calendar Tailored support About PRé Our company About PR& Our story Mission & values Our team, Working at PRE Our network Connect with usSearch Articles Carbon modeling in the PEF initiative Carbon modeling in the PEF initiative Product environmental footprint (PEF) Published 25 July, 2016 Written by ‘Laura Golsteijn The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) approach aims to standardize and simpli To enable all LCA practitioners to use the same approach, Produet En developed. In this edition of the PEF series, we describe the state of the art of carbon modeling.Three Sub-indicators For Climate Change For the impact assessment of carbon flows there are two important guidance documents to consider: the PEF guide (2013), which provides rules on the modeling approach for biogenic carbon, and an additional guidance document from De Schryver and colleagues (2016), which will aid the development and implementation of the PEFCRs, Carbon modeling with PEFCRs includes three different sub-indicators for climate change, as illustrated in the figure below: ‘+ Climate change = fossil: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to any media originating from the oxidation and/or reduction of fossil fuels by means of their transformation or degradation (c.g. combustion, digestion, landfilling, etc.). ‘+ Climate change = biogenic: carbon emissions to air (CO,, CO and CH) originating from the oxidation and/or reduction of biomass by means of its transformation ot degradation (e.g. combustion, digestion, composting, landfilling), and CO3 uptake from the atmosphere through photosynthesis during biomass growth. ‘+ Climate change —land use and land transformation: carbon uptake and emissions (CO, CO and CH) originating from carbon stock changes caused by direct land-use change, soil carbon uptake (accumulation) and emissions through land management (land use). “heatmesner ah ‘The image shows how the three subsindicators for climate change interact within the ecosystems. | Image credit: UCS.org Temporary Or Permanent Carbon Storage The approach to carbon modeling outlined in the PEF guide excludes eredits associated with temporary carbon storage or delayed emissions. They are not a default EF impact category but may be included as additional environmental information. Carbon storage is considered permanent if the carbon is only expected to be emitted again more than three centuries after its uptake. In contrast, emissions expected to occur within three centuries (delayed emissions or temporary storage) are modeled as if emitted now. Consistent With ILCD All flows should be modeled consistently with the most recent ILCD list of elementary flows. For flows from sub-indicator 1, the names ending with ‘(fossil)’ (e.g, “carbon dioxide (fossil)” and ‘methane (fossil)’) should be used if available, For flows from sub-indicator 2, the names ending with ‘(biogenic)’ (c.g., ‘carbon dioxide (biogenic)” and ‘methane (biogenic)’) should be used if available, No specific flows were available for sub-indicator 3 when the guidance document was produced. Modeling Flows SeparatelyBiogenic carbon uptakes and emissions have to be inventoried separately for each elementary flow. The allocation rules described in the PEFCR for all other elementary flows should also be applied to modeling the biogenic carbon flows. The guidance document provides two options for modeling biogenic uptake and emissions: (1) modeling all biogenic carbon flows, which allows carbon tracking, but may also require complex modeling or (2) leaving out the biogenic COy and modeling only the biogenic CHg emissions, which influence the impact on climate change. For the third sub-indicator describing land use and land transformation, all carbon flows have to be modeled separately. The uptake of carbon by soil via improved land management should be excluded from the footprint results but may be reported as additional information when sector legislations have different requirements. Furthermore, the PEF guides PAS 2050:2011 and PAS2050-1:2012 for horticultural products should be followed. The guidelines provided by De Schryver and colleagues will be implemented in the final PEFCRS. For more details, I refer to the original guidance document from De Schryver and colleagues, and to the PEF guides PAS 2050:2011 and PAS2050- 1:2012. Learn more about PEF If you want to learn more about our role in the PEF initiative, please contact us. See other episodes of this series: PEF: A game changer in LCA PEF: End-of-life modeling PEE: The role of the representative product PEE: Hotspot analysis, PEF: Dati 5 PEF: Governance structure PEE: Carbon modeling PEF: Environmental footprint of organizations PEF: Guidance for modeling the use stage ‘PEE: Energy and transport data PEF: State of the debate and outlook PEF: The end of the pilor phase am eager to increase the environmental awareness of our society, and I believe that everyone can contribute to a more sustainable world, every day. At PRE we provide companies with both the knowledge and the tools to improve their produets and services. I am excited to work for an organisation that is involved in developing sustainable initiatives, Contact the author Discover our stories Article ‘Agei-food: how LCA may play a role in the future food system By Ellie Williams Customer Case Helping the Moriculture sector reduce its environmental footprint ironmental footprint transition phate: what is happening now that the EF pilot phase is finished? By Marisa Vieira Stay up to date with our newsletterSection Name * Industry Email * Section Newsletters * “¥) | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ ‘Yl want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates’ Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters Submit Fact-based sustainability Contact us Newsletter © 2022 PRE Sustainability B.V. All rights reserved. PR¢ Sustainability is a Climate Neutral Enterprise Legal ‘Cookies Privacy,Q Solutions Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training Tr ng calendar ilored support Search About PRé Our company About PRé Our story, Mission & values Our team Working at PRE Our network Connect with usNewsletter Articles Measuring the environmental footprint of organizations in the PEF initiative Measuring the environmental footprint of organizations in the PEF initiative Published 05 September, 2016Written by Marisa Vi In 2013, the European Commission started testing the environmental footprint rules in what is known as the environmental footprint (PEF) pilot phase. However, this pilot phase contains more than just PEF. Although the focus is predominantly on the product level (24 out of 26 pilots), ive also aims to test the development of environmental footprint rules for organizations. In this article, I will briefly describe the organizational environmental footprint (OEF) in the European Commission’s initiative, The European Commission developed methods for assessing the environmental performance of products, services and organizations. These methods are based on a comprehensive assessment of the environmental impacts of the life cycle of the entity being assessed. The OEF method is a general method to measure and communicate the potential life cycle environmental impact of an organization, The aim is to make it easier for organizations to monitor and communicate their performance. Developing sector-specific rules Just as is being done for product assessment, the pilot phase is developing sector-specific guidance for calculating and reporting the life cycle impacts of organizations, the organization environmental footprint sector rules (OEFSR). The OEFSRs help to focus OEF studies on those aspects that are most relevant in determining the environmental performance of an organization in a given sector, thereby reducing the time, effort and money needed to do an OEF study. Two pilots are currently testing the development of OEFSRs, namely the pilots on copper production and retail Defining the organization and product portfolio The PEF and OEF methods, including PEFCRs and OEFSRs, are methodologically consistent. But an OEF study has a number of elements that are exclusive to an organizational study. The most important ones are Organisational and OEF system boundaries; and definition of the organization and product portfolio, which we will discuss here. ‘An OEF study is intended to provide a measure of the potential environmental pressures related to the provision of products by the organization. This requires a reference unit for assessment, parallel to the concept of “functional unit” in an LCA study. The organization is the reference unit for an OEF analysis. For the purpose of calculating the OEF, the function of an organization is to provide goods and services over a specified reporting interval. The organization and its product portfolio define the system boundaries, The product portfolio is defined similarly to the functional unit in the PEF. It encompasses the functions and services provided (“what”), the extent of the functions and services (“how much”), the expected level of quality (“how well”), and the lifetime or duration of the products and services (“for how long”) Additionally, in an OEF study, the reporting interval should be one year, clearly defined (e.g. 2015). Pll define PRé, as an example, following the rules in the OEF method: (Organization PRE Sustainability (Goods/serviees sector [Sustainability software and consultancy services |Organization|Locations of operation jetherlands IACE codes* IM71.1.2 — Engineering activities and related technical lconsultane, [Product [Functions and services provided|Sustainability software tools and consultancy services ortfolio and consultancy service ° portfe IExtent of functions and services| Fools and ‘consultancy services sold in the reporting Quality In.a. Duration {The duration of the service contracts [Reporting period pois* NACE is a system for statistically classifving economic activities in Europe, similar to ISIC (the international system). The principal activity is the activity which contributes most to the added value of the organization Organizational and OEF boundaries The system boundaries need to include and clearly distinguish both the organizational boundaries (corresponding to the activities under the control of the organization) and OEF boundaries (specifying which aspects of the value chain are included in the analysis). The two sets of boundaries define which aspects are included in the environmental performance assessment. Organizational boundaries Organizational boundaries are defined to encompass all facilities and associated processes that are fully or partially owned or operated by the organization and that directly contributes to the provision of the product portfolio. This implies that the organization being evaluated should be able to leverage direct access to specific data for activities in the organizational boundaries. These are then considered “direct” activities and impacts. This is traditionally defined as gate-to-gate system boundaries. OEF boundaries The OEF boundaries are defined by considering the value chain of the organization and its product portfolio. The OEF boundaries include, at a minimum, the site-level (direct) and upstream (indirect) activities associated with the organization’s product portfolio. By default, OEF boundaries are cradle-to-grave, including all upstream and downstream activities from raw material acquisition to processing, production, distribution, storage, use and end-of-life treatment of the product portfolio. If downstream or indirect activities are excluded (c.g. use stage of intermediate products or products with an undeterminable fate), this requires explicit justification. Now, let’s think about the OEF of a retailer that sells a wide variety of produets, considering that the complete value chain has to be assessed for each product, up to the OEF boundaries of the retailer... Quite a challenge, right? Luckily, integration with the PEF studies can save the day. Once there are PEFCRs for all product groups and average models for their “representative products”, this exercise will be much easier. The retailer will be able to focus its data collection efforts only on its direct activities and impacts — its organizational boundaries — but, at the same time, the retailer will be able to identify the actors in the value chain to engage with to reduce its OEF boundaries. I guess this is what the European Commission is going for. Why should we make the effort? Starting an OEF study is quite an endeavor. There have to be solid benefits to 0! even think about doing one. studies, or we wouldn’t Some of the applications and benefits of doing an OEF (retrieved from 2013/179/BU): mmission Recommendation + optimization of processes along the whole supply chain of an organization’s product portfolio; * communication of life cycle environmental performance to interested parties (c.g. through annual reports, in sustainability reporting); ntering reputational schemes that give visibility to organizations calculating their life eyele environmental performance, or to organizations improving their life cycle environmental performance over time (e.g. year on year); + being able to join schemes requiring reporting on life cycle environmental performane: «being able to provide information on life cycle environmental performance and objectives in the framework of an environmental management system;+ providing incentives based on the improvement of life cycle environmental performance as calculated based on the OEF method. Future outlook The OFF pilot phase is exploring whether it is possible to compare two similar organizations operating in the same sector, or, in case of organizations covering several sectors, to compare the performance of business units Given the variance of product portfolios from organization to organization, I believe that comparison across organizations won't be possible. However, | think that OEF results constitute a good tool for monitoring environmental performance, particularly when the results are expressed per selling unit or per unit of revenue Learn more about PEF If you want to lean more about our role in the PEF initiative, please contact us, See other episodes of this series: * PEF: A game changer in LCA « PEF: End-of-life modeling © PEF: The role of the representative produc + PEF: Hotspot analysis Data requiremen + PEF: Governance re + PEF: Impuct assessmer “arbon modeling Environmental footprint of organizations © PEF: Guidance for modeling the use stage + PEF: Energy and transport data * PEF: State of the debate and outlook + PEF: The end of the pilor phase EF: Transition phase Marisa Vieira Principal Consultant The time of the industrial revolution is over. Now it is time for the green revolution to go full steam ahead! Everybody needs to be involved in this process, therefore I aim to guide individuals and businesses in understanding the trade-offs between impacts, This will help them make informed decisions, which will truly help sustainable living thrive." Contact the author Discover our stories Article Consider your audience when doing LCA By Ellen Meijer Article We have a vision: trustworthy life eyele information accessible to allBy Marisa Vieira Article Sustainabilit at the core: moving from gut feeling to facts By Eric Mieras Stay up to date with our newsletter Section Name * Industry Email * Section Newsletters * ‘J | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ ‘J. | want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates’ Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters Submit Fact-based sustainability Contact us Newsletter © 2022 PRé Sustainability B.V. Alll rights reserved.tral Enterprise PrivacyQ Solutions Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training Tr ng calendar ilored support Search About PRé Our company About PRé Our story, Mission & values Our team Working at PRE Our network Connect with usNewsletter Articles Measuring the environmental footprint of organizations in the PEF initiative Measuring the environmental footprint of organizations in the PEF initiative Published 05 September, 2016Written by Marisa Vi In 2013, the European Commission started testing the environmental footprint rules in what is known as the environmental footprint (PEF) pilot phase. However, this pilot phase contains more than just PEF. Although the focus is predominantly on the product level (24 out of 26 pilots), ive also aims to test the development of environmental footprint rules for organizations. In this article, I will briefly describe the organizational environmental footprint (OEF) in the European Commission’s initiative, The European Commission developed methods for assessing the environmental performance of products, services and organizations. These methods are based on a comprehensive assessment of the environmental impacts of the life cycle of the entity being assessed. The OEF method is a general method to measure and communicate the potential life cycle environmental impact of an organization, The aim is to make it easier for organizations to monitor and communicate their performance. Developing sector-specific rules Just as is being done for product assessment, the pilot phase is developing sector-specific guidance for calculating and reporting the life cycle impacts of organizations, the organization environmental footprint sector rules (OEFSR). The OEFSRs help to focus OEF studies on those aspects that are most relevant in determining the environmental performance of an organization in a given sector, thereby reducing the time, effort and money needed to do an OEF study. Two pilots are currently testing the development of OEFSRs, namely the pilots on copper production and retail Defining the organization and product portfolio The PEF and OEF methods, including PEFCRs and OEFSRs, are methodologically consistent. But an OEF study has a number of elements that are exclusive to an organizational study. The most important ones are Organisational and OEF system boundaries; and definition of the organization and product portfolio, which we will discuss here. ‘An OEF study is intended to provide a measure of the potential environmental pressures related to the provision of products by the organization. This requires a reference unit for assessment, parallel to the concept of “functional unit” in an LCA study. The organization is the reference unit for an OEF analysis. For the purpose of calculating the OEF, the function of an organization is to provide goods and services over a specified reporting interval. The organization and its product portfolio define the system boundaries, The product portfolio is defined similarly to the functional unit in the PEF. It encompasses the functions and services provided (“what”), the extent of the functions and services (“how much”), the expected level of quality (“how well”), and the lifetime or duration of the products and services (“for how long”) Additionally, in an OEF study, the reporting interval should be one year, clearly defined (e.g. 2015). Pll define PRé, as an example, following the rules in the OEF method: (Organization PRE Sustainability (Goods/serviees sector [Sustainability software and consultancy services |Organization|Locations of operation jetherlands IACE codes* IM71.1.2 — Engineering activities and related technical lconsultane, [Product [Functions and services provided|Sustainability software tools and consultancy services ortfolio and consultancy service ° portfe IExtent of functions and services| Fools and ‘consultancy services sold in the reporting Quality In.a. Duration {The duration of the service contracts [Reporting period pois* NACE is a system for statistically classifving economic activities in Europe, similar to ISIC (the international system). The principal activity is the activity which contributes most to the added value of the organization Organizational and OEF boundaries The system boundaries need to include and clearly distinguish both the organizational boundaries (corresponding to the activities under the control of the organization) and OEF boundaries (specifying which aspects of the value chain are included in the analysis). The two sets of boundaries define which aspects are included in the environmental performance assessment. Organizational boundaries Organizational boundaries are defined to encompass all facilities and associated processes that are fully or partially owned or operated by the organization and that directly contributes to the provision of the product portfolio. This implies that the organization being evaluated should be able to leverage direct access to specific data for activities in the organizational boundaries. These are then considered “direct” activities and impacts. This is traditionally defined as gate-to-gate system boundaries. OEF boundaries The OEF boundaries are defined by considering the value chain of the organization and its product portfolio. The OEF boundaries include, at a minimum, the site-level (direct) and upstream (indirect) activities associated with the organization’s product portfolio. By default, OEF boundaries are cradle-to-grave, including all upstream and downstream activities from raw material acquisition to processing, production, distribution, storage, use and end-of-life treatment of the product portfolio. If downstream or indirect activities are excluded (c.g. use stage of intermediate products or products with an undeterminable fate), this requires explicit justification. Now, let’s think about the OEF of a retailer that sells a wide variety of produets, considering that the complete value chain has to be assessed for each product, up to the OEF boundaries of the retailer... Quite a challenge, right? Luckily, integration with the PEF studies can save the day. Once there are PEFCRs for all product groups and average models for their “representative products”, this exercise will be much easier. The retailer will be able to focus its data collection efforts only on its direct activities and impacts — its organizational boundaries — but, at the same time, the retailer will be able to identify the actors in the value chain to engage with to reduce its OEF boundaries. I guess this is what the European Commission is going for. Why should we make the effort? Starting an OEF study is quite an endeavor. There have to be solid benefits to 0! even think about doing one. studies, or we wouldn’t Some of the applications and benefits of doing an OEF (retrieved from 2013/179/BU): mmission Recommendation + optimization of processes along the whole supply chain of an organization’s product portfolio; * communication of life cycle environmental performance to interested parties (c.g. through annual reports, in sustainability reporting); ntering reputational schemes that give visibility to organizations calculating their life eyele environmental performance, or to organizations improving their life cycle environmental performance over time (e.g. year on year); + being able to join schemes requiring reporting on life cycle environmental performane: «being able to provide information on life cycle environmental performance and objectives in the framework of an environmental management system;+ providing incentives based on the improvement of life cycle environmental performance as calculated based on the OEF method. Future outlook The OFF pilot phase is exploring whether it is possible to compare two similar organizations operating in the same sector, or, in case of organizations covering several sectors, to compare the performance of business units Given the variance of product portfolios from organization to organization, I believe that comparison across organizations won't be possible. However, | think that OEF results constitute a good tool for monitoring environmental performance, particularly when the results are expressed per selling unit or per unit of revenue Learn more about PEF If you want to lean more about our role in the PEF initiative, please contact us, See other episodes of this series: * PEF: A game changer in LCA « PEF: End-of-life modeling © PEF: The role of the representative produc + PEF: Hotspot analysis Data requiremen + PEF: Governance re + PEF: Impuct assessmer “arbon modeling Environmental footprint of organizations © PEF: Guidance for modeling the use stage + PEF: Energy and transport data * PEF: State of the debate and outlook + PEF: The end of the pilor phase EF: Transition phase Marisa Vieira Principal Consultant The time of the industrial revolution is over. Now it is time for the green revolution to go full steam ahead! Everybody needs to be involved in this process, therefore I aim to guide individuals and businesses in understanding the trade-offs between impacts, This will help them make informed decisions, which will truly help sustainable living thrive." Contact the author Discover our stories Article Consider your audience when doing LCA By Ellen Meijer Article We have a vision: trustworthy life eyele information accessible to allBy Marisa Vieira Article Sustainabilit at the core: moving from gut feeling to facts By Eric Mieras Stay up to date with our newsletter Section Name * Industry Email * Section Newsletters * ‘J | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ ‘J. | want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates’ Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters Submit Fact-based sustainability Contact us Newsletter © 2022 PRé Sustainability B.V. Alll rights reserved.tral Enterprise PrivacyQ Solutions Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training Tr ng calendar ilored support Search About PRé Our company About PRé Our story, Mission & values Our team Working at PRE Our network Connect with usNewsletter Search PEF/OEF studies: the first building block Energy and transport data for PEF/OEF studies: the first building block Product environmental footprint (PEF) Organization environmental footprint (OEE) Published31 October, 2016 Written by Elsa Valencia To ensure comparability within products groups, the PEF initiative is facilitating the use of life cyele inventory data. The Energy and Transport data constitutes the first data lot. This is a short update on the availability of this first building block towards consistent EF-compliant data Improvements on the PEF and OEF method and the use of EF-compliant data will be required for ensuring comparability within products groups. For this reason, the PEF Initiative of the European Commission is purchasing life cycle inventory data compliant with the environmental footprint requirements. The Energy and Transport data constitutes the first data lot and this will need to be embedded in all subsequent data sets, e.g, packaging materials. This database will be available for free to the 24 PEF and 2 OEF pilots and for those users or entities who would like to implement these PEFCRS or OEFSRs on their own studies. Locallization of the energy and transport processes in the EF-compliant life cycle inventory datasets. The Energy and Transport data contains 2087 processes, 92% of them for energy processes, 7% for transport and 1% for supporting activities such as waste treatment or materials production. Although the datasets focus mainly in Europe, with nearly 4% of the processes in this region, it also contains data at the global level or for specific countries in other continents. The users of these datasets are allowed to use, reproduce and adapt the datasets so they properly represent the process, product, or service being modeled. As stated by the EC, the adaptation right granted includ: the right to modify, reformat, extract or incorporate the datasets or any part thereof, assemble and incorporate the datasets, or any isolated component or part thereof, in any other work or document, by any ‘means and using any technical or artistic process.” These rights are valid for the entire world, until the 31st December 2020, free of any charge If you want to know more about the Energy and Transport data in SimaPro, please contact us. Learn more about PEFIfyou want to learn more about our role in the PEF initiative, please contact us. See other episodes of this series: ‘A game changer in LCA PEF: End-of-life modeling PEF: The role of the representative product PEF: Carbon modeling PEF: Environmental footprint of or PEF: Guidance for modeling the use PEF: Energy and transport data PEF: State of the debate and outlook PEF: The end of the pilor phase transition phase Elsa Valencia LCA Data Expert I believe we all have expertise that we can use to do something to improve our relationship with the world, and that we need to use scientific methods and tools that objectively guide us when making decisions. Sustainability and sustainability metrics have been the main topic of my career. I enjoy helping clients from different backgrounds and regions to understand how they can tackle today’s challenges with integrated tools that go beyond only technical solutions. Contact the author Discover our stories Article ‘Agri-food: how LCA may play a role in the future food system By Ellie Williams Customer C: the floriculture sector reduce its environmental footprint Atticle Environmental footprint transition phas is happening now that the EF pilot phase is finished? By Marisa Vieira Stay up to date with our newsletter Section Name *Industry Email * Section Newsletters * “J) | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ ‘J | want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters Submit Fact-based sustainability Contact us Newsletter © 2022 PRé Sustainability B.V. All rights reserved. PRé Sustainability is a Climate Neutral Enterprise Legal Cookies PrivacyQ Solutions Industri Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools ‘SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training ‘Training cal Tailored support Search About PRé Our company About PRE ur story Mission & values Our team, Working at PRE Our network Connect with us Contact usSearch Articles State of the debate and outlook for the PEF initiative State of the debate and outlook for the PEF initiative Product environmental foot , Published 07 December, 2016 Written by Marisa Vieita ACPRG, we've been very involved in the European Commission's Product Environmental Footpriating (PEF) and the Organizational Environmental Footprinting (OBF) initiative, as covered in our series of articles. A big part ofthe PEF initiative is its pilot phase, planned to last for 3 years and intially scheduled to end soon. However, the pilot phase hus recently been extended, In this news article, you will read ‘why and what the status i.Status so far ‘The PEF pilot phase was primarily focused on developing guidelines for creating PEF Category Rules (PEFCRs) and Organisation Environmental Footprint Sector Rules (OEFSRs), including verification and communication. 26 pilots were started, with the aim of developing specific environmental footprint rules for their product category or sector. Of these 26, the pilots on stationery and coffee stopped completely, and the marine fish pilot is delayed and won't be able to finish on time, TD Batteriesand accumulators K_ leather @ jHotand cold weterpipes B® ver Q Liquid laundry detergent 4 -— 2 equipment >et> Fish BH metal foils J vain Bee shoes @,_ Feed for tood-producinganimals BB Photovoitaicetectricity generation BH ved meats Bp stone 18 Pet food @ intermediate paper products b divecit F Thies EE Posto Uninterruptible Power Supply F Wine BP recto secor © cei irosurrien zoe Packed water An overview of the 26 pilot projects in the first wave (left column) and second wave (right column), including the ones that were discontinued (stationery and coffee). ‘The pilot phase includes testing of the developed rules with at least 3 supporting studies per PEFCR/OEFSR. The testing is now finished, so 21 PEFCRs and 2 OEFSRs are currently being finalized and will be sent to the Commission before the end of this year. Just like in a marathon, all runners involved can now see the finish line and are being applauded by the audience in the stadium, but they still need to run those last few meters. Developing guidance for implementation In addition to developing PEFCRs and OEFSRs, the European Commission has been using the pilot phase to develop the guidance for the implementation of the FU Environmental Footprint for both products and organizations, This includes specific guidance for the development of PEFCRs and OEFSRs. The guidance documents complement the PEF and OEF methods with various issue papers on specific topics, e.g. carbon modeling, use stage, hotspots analysis, and da ‘quality, that in the meantime should have been tested by the pilots.An overview ofthe PEFCR development process, similar to OBFSR development. Coming soon in the pilot phase... The EF pilot phase is now scheduled to end in November 2017 with the approval of the final documents. Except for the ‘guidance documents, there will be PEFCRs and OEFSRs for measuring and communicating the environmental performance throughout the life eycle of 22 product groups and 2 sectors, most of which were developed by pilots representing more than 50% of the EU market for each product group/sector. This is exciting news for companies in those product groups and sectors. They will have very clear rules on how to calculate environmental footprints and will also be able to compare their products to the European benchmark, Below is a list of what is yet to come during the pilot phase: ‘+ ‘Testing a variety of communication vehicles to convey environmental footprint information, e.g. the European Commission app made available for this purpose ‘+ Testing multiple verification schemes; verification requirements will be set per pilot ‘+ Finalising the guidance documents for PEFCR and OEFSR development ‘+ Making available life eyele inventory databases for free until the end of 2020, for PEF and OEF studies approved during the pilot phase; the first batch of energy and transport EF-compliant datasets is already available ‘+ Remodelling of all representative products and organisations and recalculation of the benchmarks, integrating the LCT data mentioned above and implementing the final rules in the guidance documents; these models will also become freely available ‘+ Making available elearning materials for 3 pilots + Developing open-source software tools for SMEs in 4 pilots, to provide information on their environmental performance ‘+ Submitting the PEFCRs and OEFSRs developed during the pilot phase for final approval by the Steering Committee by the end of 2017 ‘+ Evaluating the pilot phase, both in content and process + Evaluating potential policies involving PEF and OEF PRé will continue to be involved as the Technical Helpdesk until the end of the pilot phase, And after that, who knows? One thing is certain: we would like to stay involved in this exciting initiative!21 PEFCRs and 2 OEFSRs are currently being finalized and will be sent to the Commission before the end of this year. Just like in a marathon, all runners involved ean now sce the finish line and are being applauded by the audience in the stadium, but they still need to run those last few meters. And after the pilot phase? In 2018 and 2019, there will be a transition period with similar activities as in the pilot phase. In that period, apptoved PEFCRs and OEFSRs can be applied in practice and the development of additional PEFCRS/OEFSRs can start. ‘The European Commission will continue to coordinate and monitor this transition phase. No policy integrating the environmental footprinting is expected from the Commission before 2020. However, that doesn’t ‘mean that no one will use the PEFCR and OEFSR before that time. In my opinion, the development of a PEFCR/OEFSR is the most time-consuming activity. Once they're available, particularly if people have access to the models, it will be quite straightforward and quick to calculate the EF performance of specific products. Italy recently released a national voluntary scheme for consultation, entitled "Made Green in Italy.” This scheme adopts the PEF methodology for determining the environmental footprint of products. Will the Commission follow in Italy's footsteps ‘or will it take even more bold action? And how about you: do you intend to wait until you know more or will you do your own ‘shadow’ PEF/OEF studies to get ahead of the curve? There are plenty of ways to get on board even in the transition phase. Learn more about PEF ‘The EF initiative is a great endeavor towards the standardization of LCA, and it’s a work in progress, If you want to learn ‘more about our role in the PEF initiative, please contact us. See other episodes of this series: PEE: The role ofthe representative product PEF: Hotspot analysis, PEF: Data requirements PEF: Governance structu PEE Imactassesament -F: Carbon modeling PEE: avnmental footprint of organizations PEF: Guidance for modeling the use stage PEF: Energy and transport data PEE ft id outlook PEF: The end of the pilor phase transition phaseMarisa Vieira Principal Consultant ‘The time of the industrial revolution is over. Now itis time for the green revolution to go full steam ahead! Everybody needs to be involved in this process, therefore I aim to guide individuals and businesses in understanding the trade-offs between impacts. This will help them make informed decisions, which will try help sustainable living thrive." mntact the author Discover our stories ay a role in the future food system Environmental ftps nn phase: what is happening now that the EF pilot phase is finished? By Marisa Vieira Stay up to date with our newsletter Section Name * Industry Email * Section Newsletters * J) want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ ‘Yl want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates’ Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters. Submit© 2022 PRE Sustainability B.V. All rights reserved. PRé Sustainability is a Climate Neutral EnterpriseQ Solutions Industri About a =a Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training ‘Training cal Tailored support Search About PRé Our company About PRE ur story Mission & values Our team, Working at PRE Our network Connect with us Contact usSearch Articles The end of the PEF pilot phase and the start of a beautiful friendship The end of the PEF pilot phase and the start of a beautiful friendship Published 08 June, 2018 Written by Marisa Vieira The European Commission's Environmental Footprinting (EF) plot phase has successfully ended. Of the 27 pilot projects, 14 have defined their product environmental footprint category rules (PEFCRs) or organisation environmental footprint sector rules (OEFSRs) for the European market and another 9 aim to do so by October. Now, the PEF method is available for use by anyone who is interested. Read on for ‘brief review and to see what's next!Why the European Environmental Footprinting initiative is such a great development Let’s remind ourselves why the PEF pilot phase started: a strong call for harmonised rules. Because consumers have difficulty choosing the right product and understanding the large number of labels available in the market, And manufacturers want fair competition against false ‘green’ claims. ‘There is also a fundamental need to focus on the most relevant issues, because that will promote innovation and competitiveness, better supply chain management, simplification of LCA work and cost reduction. The pilot phase was designed to test the development process of sector and category rules, different approaches to verification and communication vehicles for the results, After more than 4 years of intensive work and collaborative effort, [ am pleased to tell you IT WORKS! Within each product group, comparability of environmental performance can be ‘guaranteed for products following the PEFCR. In addition, the pilot phase has resulted in: Clear guidelines for developing PEFCRs and OEFSRs nndary EF-compliant data and about 70 models used to define the representative products available for free ‘An open-source IT tool to perform PEF/OEF calculations for four PEFCRs (development ongoing) Clear rules for PEF/OEF verification Information on the effectiveness of the various communication vehicles All of these were tested by more than 20 pilot projects. z roduct groups finalised @ Batteries and accumulators Leather ® Beer @® Pet food Dairy products BR Pasta & Decorative paints Thermal insulation 2 Feed for food-producing animals = Wine IT equipment 8 Packed water Sectors finalised Retail sector Copper sector Pilots intending to submit their PEFCRs by October 2018 # Footwear @ Olive oil FR Hot and cold water piping X& Photovoltaic electricity systems generation Intermediate paper products @ T-shirts @ Liquid laundry detergents $ Uninterrupted power supplies {© Metal sheets Pilots that did not make it & Coffee = Red meat »%® Marine fish GE StationeryUpdate: ‘s September 2018: Footwear pilot decided to stop and is now one ofthe pilots that did not make it «December 2018: The following pilots were approved: hot and cold water piping systems, intermediate paper products, liguid laundry deergens, metal sheets, photovoltaic elecricity generation, tshirts, uninterrupted power supplies, Olive oll plot was postponed tothe transition phase. PEF put into practice We are now entering a transition phase before the possible adoption of policies for implementing the PEF and OBF ‘methods. During this phase, businesses and other interested parties can: ‘+ implement existing PEFCRs and OEFSRs ‘= develop new PEFCRs and OEFSRs based on the developed guidelines ‘+ do new methodological developments A call for volunteers for the development of new PEFCRs and OEFSRs will soon go out. If you are interested, watch for it on the PRé website! At the end of April, the European Commission held a workshop on implementing policies around the Environmental Footprint methods, gathering feedback from stakeholders. Potential policy options run the gamut from “business as usual’ ~ no policy steps and limited support from the EC — to continued support and regular updates of the guidelines but no policies, integration in existing policies such as the EU Ecolabel, Green Public Procurement, EMAS, Sustainable Fi ete., and even creating entirely new instruments to substantiate specific claims. Regardless of future policies, several pilots and companies have already expressed their commitment to PEF and OEF. For instance, the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) plans to evaluate the leanings from the beer, wine and packed water pilots and, possibly, to update the Beverage Industry Sector Guidance protocol to align with the PEF rules What’s in it for you? Now the PEF pilot phase is done, companies and LCA professionals can start applying the PEFCRs and the OEFSRs. We are doing the same for our clients. We are also involved with the development of new product category and sector rules. For instance, we are one of the partners in a project that just started to develop a PEFCR for all horticulture products, which was commissioned by Royal FloraHolland, GroentenFruit Huis and LTO Glaskracht. Everything you need to apply the PEF is available: a process, a guidance document, data and models, etc. Whether you are looking for a new way to do reporting, monitoring, labelling, innovation, and so on, the PEF way will save you a lot of time and resources and is much less fraught with choices than traditional LCA. ‘The main differences between PEF and traditional LCA\ ‘+ PEF offers benchmarking for the European market for a product group or economic sector by defining a representative produeVorganisation PEF helps you focus, using iality approach and hotspots analysis to determine what matters ‘The new data needs matrix helps you determine data requirements, PEF prescribes a single impact assessment method, in contrast to the variety available in traditional LCA PEF mandates the use of the circular footprint formula (CFF), a single way to model material and energy recovery from waste Learn more ‘+ Would you like to know more about the outcome of the PEF pilot phase and what's next? Join 28th of June. ‘+ Do you already know you want to get started with PEF? Take a look at our PEE training, ‘+ Wold you like to know how else we can support your PEF-related activities? Please contact Marisa Vieira. PRé believes in PEF We had the pleasure of actively contributing to this very exciting journey. We were the Technical helpdesk of the pilot phase, assisting both the pilots and the Commission, We also reviewed 40 PEECR supporting studies and contributed to the EF-compliant secondary data,‘At the moment, we are working on the so-called remodelling project, coordinating the development of models for the representative products and organisations, We are also supporting UNIDO with PEF capability development in four ‘Mediterranean countries and supporting local companies and experts with their PEF studies, And we are not alone in our support of the PEF initiative. When Héléne Simonin, Director Food, Fnvironment & Health at the European Dairy Association and coordinator of the Dairy pilot, was asked why they engaged in the development of a PEFCR during the PEF pilot phase, she answered: “Why do you bet on a horse? Because you believe in it?” Marisa Vieita Principal Consultant The time of the industrial revolution is over. Now it is time for the green revolution to go full steam ahead! Everybody needs to be involved in this process, therefore I aim to guide individuals and businesses in understanding the trade-offs between impacts. This will help them make informed decisions, which will truly help sustainable living thrive." Contact the author Discover our stories Article We have a vision: thy life cycle information accessible to all By Marisa Vieira Article ss hilisy at the core: moving from gut fe to facts By Brie Mieras Axticle What the revised EN 1SH04 standard means for you By Anne Gaasbeek Stay up to date with our newsletter Section Name * Industry Email * Section Newsletters * J) | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ Yl want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newslettersSubmit Search Fact-based sustainabil Contact us Newsletter © 2022 PRE Sustainability B.V. All rights reserved. PRé Sustainability is a Climate Neutral Enterprise Legal Cookies Privacy,Q Solutions Fact-based solutions to help you drive positive change. Consulting Sustainable products Sustainable companies Sustainable sectors Tools SimaPro Custom tools Integrated software Training Tr ng calendar ilored support Search About PRé Our company About PRé Our story, Mission & values Our team Working at PRE Our network Connect with usEnvironmental footprint transition phase: what is happening now that the EF pilot phase is finished? Published12 October, 2020 Written by Marisa Vieira The pilot phase of the Environmental Footprinting Initiative is over. What's next? The period before any policies regarding product and organization environmental footprinting are adopted is a transition phase, with a focus on monitoring implementation and getting new developments started. The start of the EF transition phase In April 2018, the Environmental Footprint pilot phase concluded with a final conference in Brussels with the title “From vision to action”. That conference analyzed the Environmental Footprint joumney during the pilot phase, but it also explored potential future applications for the product environmental footprint (PEF) and organization environmental footprint (OEF) methods, This included looking at their use in the wider EU policy context. The European Commission (EC) just communicated the European Green Deal. It scems they are planning to take some serious measures regarding sustainability, with the environmental footprint methods the designated metrics for this purpose. The period between the end of the EF pilot phase and the possible adoption of policies has been designated a transition phase. The transition phase is coordinated by the European Commission's DG GROW in addition to DG ENV, which had previously been involved. This means that in the view of the EC environmental footprinting has now outgrown the academic arena and has become a growth market. December 2019 European Green Deal March 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan April 2015 EC Recommendation Communication Single Market for Green Products May 2020 Biodiversity strategy Farm to Forkstrategy Expected in Q2 2021 Green caims initiative Pilot phase Analyze results Policy proposal Policy in place Transition phase April 2018 Ongoing Pilots finalized + Monitoring the voluntary implementation of PEFCRS/ OEFSRS + Development of PEFCRSs + Methodological improvements Timeline of the Environmental Footprint initiative The main objectives of the transition phase are to provide a framework for monitoring the implementation of existing PEF category rules and OEF sector rules (PEFCRs and OEFSRs), developing new ones, and doing other methodological developments. It is also an excellent time for companies to get ahead and implement PEF and OFF metrics in their own business processes. That way, you will be prepared for the policy requirements that are coming soon. New projects startedSeveral sectors sent in applications to develop new PEFCRs, five of which were selected: ‘Apparel (including accessories, dresses, hosiery, underwear, leggings/ tights, base layers, jacket, jersey, pants, shirts, skirt, socks, sweater and cardigans, swimwear, t-shirt, boots, cleats, court, dress shoes/heels, other athletic shoes, sandals and sneakers) Cut flowers and potted plants Flexible packaging (with low, medium and high functionality) Synthetic turf Marine fish (wild-caught marine fish and marine fish from marine open-net pen aquaculture) PRé is very happy to be supporting two of these, namely the PEFCR projects for synthetic turf products and for cut flowers and potted plants. The latter is especially familiar to us: it brings the work we did in the HortiFootprint project in full alignment with the EU’s PEF rules. There has also been interest in doing a full revision of some of the PEFCRs and OEFSRs approved during the pilot phase. Since the secondary datasets used for PEFCRs and OEFSRs are only valid until the end of 2021, a revision would guarantee longer validity of the PEFCRs and OEFSRs. Another transition phase option is the integration of shadow pilots, which cover PEFCRs and OEFSRs developed outside the pilot phase. Methodological developments The transition phase projects will use the JRC reports on the PEF method and on the OFF method as their methodological basis. These methods include updates from developments and the lessons learned during the pilot phase Two working groups are looking into further methodological updates: * Data working group (DWG) + Agricultural modeling working group (AWG). Data working group... for those fond of technical details The DWG aims to create a collaborative framework for future developments around EF needs, specifically to enhance the coordination between and communication with data developers and LCA software providers. The DWG’s topics are: + developments in the EF reference package (which contains all the reference database items for the EF framework, such as elementary flows, flow properties and units) + data generation in the EF framework. We highlight the following milestones of the DWG: + Exchange of life cycle models across software (building on the work already done during the Remodeling project) + A set of minimum requirements to be fulfilled by a software to be “EF ready” From PRE, my colleagues Katarzyna Cenian and Rutger Schurgers are part of the DWG. Agricultural modeling working group The goal of the AWG is to facilitate the discussion among agricultural life cycle experts on agriculture- related topics. It also aims to update the EF methods to align with best practices and knowledge available today. The AWG expects to work on:+ Improving the inventory modeling of pesticide application + Exploring if the inventory modeling of fertilizer applications can be improved «Identifying a common approach to model flows or direct emissions related to feed digestion and manure management (animal/fish) on farms + Providing detailed guidelines for inventory modeling of water use «Assessing different approaches to measuring biodiversity impacts (which goes beyond the scope of agriculture activities alone) and deriving recommendations on how to complement or improve the current EF impact indicators in this area + Providing mandatory primary data collection and quality requirements for farm related activities, in line with the data requirements of the EF methods. 1 am participating in this working group myself, because it has an obvious connection to the PEFCR project on cut flowers and potted plants that we are supporting and also connects to many other projects we do in the agti-food sector. How long will it take and what can you expect The transition phase is expected to last until the end of 2022. However, policy action is already starting now, with the release of the European Green Deal. Stay tuned for more information around that in a future article. ‘Meanwhile, I recommend you to start testing the PEF and OEF methods. This will increase your awareness and understanding about the environmental footprint performance of your products or organization and will show you where to focus to further improve it. Learn more * Do you already know you want to get started with PEF/OEF? Take a look at our PI + Would you like to know how else we can support your PEF-related activities? Please contact Marisa Vieira. Marisa Vieira Principal Consultant The time of the industrial revolution is over. Now it is time for the green revolution to go full steam ahead! Everybody needs to be involved in this process, therefore I aim to guide individuals and businesses in understanding the trade-offs between impacts. This will help them make informed decisions, which will truly help sustainable living thrive." Contact the author Discover our stories Article Agri-food: how LCA may play a role in the future food system Customer Case Helping the floriculture sector reduce its environmental footprint Customer C: Developing a methodology for environmental footprinting of horticultural productsStay up to date with our newsletter Section Name * Industry Email * Section Newsletters * J) | want to subscribe to ‘Sustainability & LCA’ ‘¥_ | want to subscribe to ‘SimaPro updates’ Conditions * | agree to the Privacy Policy & receiving newsletters Submit Fact-based sustainability Contact us Newsletter © 2022 PRé Sustainability B.V. All rights reserved. PRé Sustainability is a Climate Neutral Enterprise Legal Cookies Privac