the oecd sustainable manufacturing toolkit sustainability and us competitiveness summit october 8,...

The OECD sustainable manufacturing toolkit

Sustainability and US Competitiveness Summit

October 8, 2009

Michael BordtStructural Policy DivisionDirectorate of Science, Technology and Industry

OECDMichael.Bordt@oecd.orgwww.oecd.org/sti/innovation/sustainablemanufacturing

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What is the OECD?

• Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (www.oecd.org)

• An intergovernmental organization with 30 member countries– “a setting where governments compare policy

experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and coordinate domestic and international policies.”

– Does this through a diverse structure of committees with national, international and business representation

• One of the world’s largest sources of comparative statistics of economic and social data

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Perspective on sustainable manufacturing

• Sustainability: Environmental, Economic and Social dimensions– Making more efficient use of non-

renewable resources, and– Minimizing the use and production of

unwanted by-products

• By: dematerialization and substitution• While: meeting corporate and social

needs

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Why a(nother) toolkit?

• Many existing initiatives to measure corporate sustainability performance in international, regional and national governments

• Many methodologies to measure various aspects of sustainability performance– All are useful and provide unique insights– Very little comprehensive international guidance on “best

practices” for “non-experts”– Public reporting tends to be by larger companies– Reporting doesn’t focus on underlying materials,

processes and products that influence performance

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Objectives (1)

• Promote a common framework and language for measuring sustainability performance

• Take a systematic view of the production process• Incorporate life-cycle thinking by promoting

stewardship over materials, production and products• Develop core indicators that can be interpreted in a

common way• Provide guidance to assist non-experts in companies

to collect data, calculate the indicators, analyse and improve their own sustainability performance

• Facilitate internal analysis (not another obligation but a measurement resource)

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Objectives (2)

Be complementary with existing mainstream initiatives: • Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) – comprehensive set of corporate

sustainability indicators• LCA: Life Cycle Assessment – assesses impacts of product systems• MFA/MFCA: Material Flow/Cost Analysis – tracks materials

efficiency/costs and resource productivity• MIPS: Materials Input Per Unit Service – measures resource

productivity of products and services• EMAS: EU’s Environmental Management and Audit Scheme –

encourages environmental performance reporting and improvement• IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – provides

guidance on calculating greenhouse gas emissions at national level– WBCSD and WRI developing GHG protocol for businesses

• PRTR: Pollutant Release and Transfer Registries – national activities to track releases of controlled pollutants

• Ecological Footprinting (EF) – shows impacts in terms of global land required to support consumption patterns

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Existing metrics approaches

Product | process | facility | corporation | sector | country | global Measurement unit

Tec

hn

ical

Det

ail

High

Medium

Low

LCA

GRI MFA

IPCCPRTRs

EMAS

EF

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OECDToolkit

Toolkit features

• Focuses on performance of a facility (site or location), its materials and its product mix– Inventory inputs, processes, products and by-products

• Uses commonly-available (to some) data to calculate 18 inter-related core indicators

• Financial analysis is done by estimating costs and benefits of improving environmental performance

• Presented as a “how to” guide for non-experts• Not: estimating aggregate or ultimate impact

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Indicator categories

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Core indicators

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For each indicator

• Concepts; why the indicator is important• General formula for calculation

– Description of each component data item– Guidance on “typical” and “atypical” cases

• References to national and international data, further information and detailed methodology

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Current status

• Prototype is being discussed and tested– Would like to include detailed case

study

• Further refinement based on input from business and other experts– Requires field testing

• Publish in spring 2010

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Future work (beyond 2010)• What do you want the toolkit to be?

– Include broader economic performance (of facility on national and global economy)

– Include social performance (of materials, processes and products)

– Additional performance indicators: • Benefits of products• Embedded wastes, water in materials and products

– Harmonized data (factors, process, product materials databases)

– More detailed/harmonized methodologies– National or sectoral statistics based on performance

indicators

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Thank you

CommentsQuestions

Michael.Bordt@oecd.orgwww.oecd.org/sti/innovation/

sustainablemanufacturing

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