1 / 18

21 st Annual Conference

21 st Annual Conference. Mercury Lamps - Life Cycle Assessment for Product Stewardship Peter Garrett – ERM New Zealand. 15 th October 2009. Agenda. Who is ERM? LCA and product stewardship Key points of LCA process Case study: Mercury lamps in NZ.

ppeter
Download Presentation

21 st Annual Conference

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. 21st Annual Conference

  2. Mercury Lamps - Life Cycle Assessment for Product StewardshipPeter Garrett – ERM New Zealand 15th October 2009

  3. Agenda • Who is ERM? • LCA and product stewardship • Key points of LCA process • Case study: Mercury lamps in NZ

  4. ERM – Worldwide Environmental Consultancy • ERM services in this area: • Product Stewardship Accreditation Assessors (NZ MfE) • Life cycle management (LCM) and assessment (LCA) • Waste management • Strategy • Minimisation • Technology appraisal • Forecasting 350 staff in Australia and New Zealand

  5. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) • ‘Cradle to grave’ environmental accounting • exchanges of energy and materials with the environment at each stage of the life cycle • emissions to air, land and water • 1960s energy analysis, developed by SETAC in the 1980s and ISO in the 1990s (ISO 14040/44) • Streamlined LCA simplifies the full-blown approach • Carbon footprinting is streamlined LCA through consideration of only carbon (global warming impacts)

  6. LCA, Product Stewardship & Waste Management • LCA is best-practice method for assessing environmental impacts for product stewardship and waste management: • NZ Waste Minimisation Act supports life cycle approach under Product Stewardship • EU thematic strategy on waste – life cycle approach • EU Integrated Product Policy – life cycle approach • UNEP Environment programme on Life Cycle Management • Defra (UK) LCA assessments formally integrated into the Business cases for PFI for waste • Harvard Business Review September 2009 – LCA needs to be a core business competence

  7. Storage & Retail Storage & Consumption INDIRECT Retail Transport Production Distribution Transport Disposal DIRECT Raw Materials Impacts Across Value Chains • Impacts occur at every stage of the product life cycle • Controlling direct impacts can lead to ‘burden shifting’ and may be counter-productive • Need to take an holistic view

  8. Define the Life Cycle System • Define aim of LCA • Define product ‘equivalence’ • define study flow • Set system boundary • identify life cycle stages • use appropriate cut-off • Quantify the flows • Calculate the impacts • Interpret and assess results and options • Data collection and selection is key: • ensure consistency and transparent assumptions

  9. Effective Decision Support • Benefits of LCA for Product Stewardship: • Scientifically robust results • Reduces risk • Understand environmental benefits • Supports decision making: • inform policy • inform marketing claims • support green purchasing • basis for awards/credentials • use in product design/development process • aid investment decisions (eg waste technology/manufacturing)

  10. LCA Applications • Applications: • An individual • A product/service • A site • A business • A sector • A new enterprise • Any choice

  11. Mercury lamps in NZ

  12. Background • Fully ISO compliant LCA • Aim to understand the environmental impacts of mercury-containing lamps to help inform potential policy under Waste Minimisation Act • Inform the evidence base for discussions with stakeholders on policy options • Series of three reports on mercury: (1) New Zealand Lighting Industry Product Stewardship Scheme (PHASE 1 Assessment) and (2) Review and Mercury Inventory for New Zealand 2008 • Issues surrounding: • What are the impacts of mercury? • Is a take-back scheme environmentally beneficial? • What effect does take-back collection rate have? • How does mercury-level effect the impacts? • What effect will lamp lifetime and efficiency have? • Links will be available at:

  13. Goal & Scope • Assess “typical” mercury-containing lamps in New Zealand • Determine whole-life environmental impacts: • raw materials, import, lamp production, distribution, use, and waste management • Assessed over 100,000 hours of operation • Results are not comparable across lamp types

  14. Benefits of recycled materials Life Cycle for Lamps • Scenarios: • Recovery and recycling rates of 0%, 9%, 50% and 80% • Reduced mercury level by 20% • Extended lifetime of 50% • Increased operating efficiency 10%

  15. Study Results – Not yet published! • Full range of environmental impacts: • depletion of resources; • global warming; • stratospheric ozone depletion; • human toxicity; • fresh-water and marine aquatic eco-toxicity; • terrestrial ecotoxicity; • photo-oxidant formation; • acidification; and • eutrophication. • Result shown by: • By life cycle stage (manufacture, transport, use, disposal, recycling/recovery) • By lamp type • Benefits of options assessed • Issues of economics and of practicability (e.g. consumer engagement) are outside of the scope of this study

  16. Study Outcomes – Mercury Lamps in NZ • Scientifically based results of environmental impacts • Externally reviewed, ISO compliant, New Zealand specific • Identify scale of environmental benefits across supply chain • Of increased recycling/recovery • Comparable within lamp types • Prioritise where impacts/benefit arise in the life cycle • Risk minimisation • Inform government policy / targets / legislation • Transparent and open information to industry • Results published by end 2009

  17. Any questions?Thank you for listening

  18. 21st Annual Conference

More Related