bottom-up life-cycle:assessment of product consumption in belgium

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

Bottom-Up Life-CycleAssessment of ProductConsumption in BelgiumBart Jansen and Karine Thollier

Summary

The present study shows the results and methodology appliedto the study of the identification of priority product categoriesfor Belgian product and environmental policy. The main goalof the study was to gather insight into the consumption ofproducts in Belgium and their related life-cycle environmentalimpacts. The conclusions of this project on the product cat-egories with major environmental contributions can be usedto start up working groups involving stakeholders and initiatedetailed product studies on the impact reduction potentialthat could be achieved by means of implementing productpolicy measures. Several ways of assessing product categoryenvironmental impacts and the effects of policy measures havebeen developed; bottom-up or market-life-cycle assessmentis one of these, and we tried this approach for the situation inBelgium. Simplified life-cycle assessment (LCA) studies wereconducted for representative average products within eachfunction-based product category and the results were multi-plied with market statistics. Using this approach, we found thatbuilding construction, building occupancy, and personal trans-port are among the major categories for Belgium. The majordrawbacks of this approach are the system-level limitations andthe existence of a broad spectrum of nonharmonized meth-ods and datasets fromwhich a sound preliminary selection hadto be made. Consequently, the retrieval and selection of datawas very time consuming and due to this we had to acceptsome major limitations in the study design. Nevertheless, thestudy has contributed to the development of a methodol-ogy for market-LCA and elements that can be picked up incurrently ongoing and future work. The study concludes thatto improve the feasibility and acceptance of this type of studythere is a need for the development of a harmonized method-ology onmarket-LCA, policy-relevant impact indicators as wellas a harmonized and stakeholder-agreed-upon LCA databases.

Keywords

economic analysisemissionsimpact assessmentimpacts of productsintegrated product policy (IPP)market life-cycle assessment (LCA)

Address correspondence to:Bart JansenVITOBoeretang 200B2400 MolBelgium

2006 by the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology and Yale University

Volume 10, Number 3

www.mitpressjournals.org/jie Journal of Industrial Ecology 41

RESEARCH AND ANALYS I S

Introduction

Environmental policy in Belgium has beenmainly process- and sector-oriented in the past.That is beginning to change. In line with theEuropean integrated product policy and in ac-cordance with the Belgian Federal Plan for Sus-tainable Development 20002004, the FederalServices of the Environment (FSE) were maderesponsible for the elaboration of an action planon product policy in Belgium. In October 2002,the FSE proposed a Guiding Plan on Product andEnvironment 20032005. Two proposed actionsconcerned policy-supporting studies on the iden-tification of product categories whose consump-tion in Belgium results in substantial resourceuse and climate change from cradle to grave,thus taking their whole life cycle into account.These studies, commissioned by the FSE and co-financed by the Belgian Science Policy, wereconducted by the Flemish Institute for Tech-nological Research (VITO) and the Institut deConseil et dEtudes en Developpement Durableasbl (ICEDD) in 20022003 (Nemry et al. 2002;Thollier et al. 2005).

Goal and Scope

Objectives of the Project

The objective of the study was to identifythe priority product categories for an environ-mental product policy at the federal level inBelgium. By products are meant all physicalmovable goods brought on the market within theeconomic region of Belgium. By product cate-gories are meant all groupings of products in-tended for the same purpose (having an identicalor similar function). The selection of priorityproduct categories had to be based on severalcriteria and steps: (1) the identification of prod-uct groups that have the greatest environmentalimpact from a life-cycle perspective and with afocus on environmental themes that are of rele-vance in an existing environmental policy con-text (European, Belgian federal, or Belgian re-gional); (2) the identification of product groupswith high economic relevance and representingrelevant market volumes; (3) the identificationof product categories for which there is a po-tential of improvement; (4) the identification of

product categories for which the acceptance bystakeholders is high; and (5) the identificationof product categories for which policy measuresare possible within the scope of the federal policycompetences.1 Realizing that this is a multiyeartask requiring a large effort, the goal of this studywas narrowed to mainly the first two steps of thispriority product selection process. These stepsare discussed in this article. In follow-up work,detailed studies and stakeholder working groupswill analyze the potential improvement due toproduct policy measures targeted at these prod-uct groups. The most relevant legislation thatserves as a framework and outlines the goals forproduct and environmental policy in Belgium isthe law on product standards to support sustain-able production and consumption patterns andto protect the environment and public health.2

The goal and scope of this study was very muchoutlined by this law and is discussed in more de-tail in the next section on the scope of productsconsidered in the study.

Scope of Products Covered in This Study

From the start, several product categories wereexcluded from the scope of the prioritizationstudy. This is because these products are explic-itly exempted from the Belgian Product Law be-cause they are already covered by other exist-ing legislation and to avoid conflicting measures(Debeuckelaere 1999). These products includeexplosives, agricultural products such as agro-chemicals, food and beverages, medicines, andcosmetics, and others.

In addition to requiring that some product cat-egories be excluded, the commissioners of thestudy required that the product categories ofpackaging and building products be included inthe scope of the project. It is mainly the evalu-ation of preventive measures on packaging thatwere of interest in the framework of this study.With regard to building products, there are cur-rently no centralized policy incentives or productstandards in Belgium (except with regard to la-beling and energy); however, the FSE is preparinga strategy in this area and wanted to use the out-come of this study for that purpose.

For the definition of products, the legal defini-tion was the starting point: all physical movable

42 Journal of Industrial Ecology


goods brought on the market for private and/orpublic consumers; and for product aggregation,by product categories are meant all groupings ofproducts intended for the same purpose (havingan identical or similar function). This was trans-lated into some more detailed objectives thatwere agreed upon by the project team and thecontractor FSE. They are described here briefly.

1. The focus is on products finally consumedby households in Belgium (further re-ferred to as final products); thus not gov-ernment consumption, nor business-to-business products (further referred to asintermediate products). In life-cycle as-sessment (LCA) theory, the impacts fromthese intermediate products are dividedover their consequent final product systems(mostly as capital goods). Because thesystem boundary considered in the studyis second-level (wherein only indirect in-puts of energy and materialsnot capitalgoodsare included), this is not the case.We recommend that future studies alsoconsider these product groups for priori-tization, because they are, as such, subjectto policies such as the Integrated ProductPolicy (IPP) Directive, the Energy-usingProducts (EuP) Directive, and the Packag-ing Directive.3

2. The reference year for determining stockand sales volumes is 20002001.

3. Products have been aggregated on the basisof function. The classification of the Na-tional Statistics Institute household budgetsurvey has been used as the starting point.4

Because other existing classifications suchas Prodcom are more sector-based, theywere not considered useful in this context.TheNational Institute for Statistics (NIS)-survey aggregation has been adapted as lit-tle as needed, according to the followingprinciples: The second highest level of ag-gregation comprises product families thatcan be defined by a similar purpose andfunctional unit. At the highest level of ag-gregation product categories are groupedaccording to the general nature of the prod-uct, for instance, grouping clothing andhousehold textiles.

The focus of the study is on new products puton the market, and to a lesser extent productstock. This is important with regard to data re-trieval on technical characteristics of products:bill of materials, energy efficiency, and so on. Re-sults thus reflect the life-cycle impacts of newproducts consumed during one year and not theimpacts of product stock during one year. Forwaste treatment after product life, which is dif-ferent for each product category, a continuationof current business as usual has been assumed.

Economic Analysis

As discussed in the earlier section on objec-tives of the project, economic relevance is one ofthe main criteria for determining priority prod-uct categories. Both consumption and productionwithin the region of Belgium have been analyzedand available statistical data have been used forthis purpose.

According to theNIS survey on household ex-penditure,5 the products considered in this studycover 70% of total expenditure (for 2001, totalper household was 28,653 euro). The remaining30% is mainly services, for instance, education,medical care, public transportation, recreation,and financial services, and also the omitted prod-ucts discussed in the previous section. Althoughservices involve the use of various types of prod-ucts, these are not considered in this study andcan be part of future studies. The top 10 prod-uct categories, amounting to up to 65% of totalhousehold expenditure, are, in descending order,dwellings, cars, food, heating, clothing, bever-ages, communication appliances, pharmaceuticalproducts, furniture, and products for gardening.

NIS industry statistics6 indicate the relevanceof particular product groups from the productionside of the Belgian economy. Some 50% in value(euros) of Prodcom classes can be directly at-tributed to the product classes defined in thisstudy. But these product categories not only rep-resent deliveries to consumers but also include ex-port and deliveries to other sectors, for instance,computers and building products. In terms of topcontributing product categories, there is muchsimilarity to the top contributing consumptioncategories defined above. One noticeable excep-tion is clothing, which is mainly imported.When

Jansen and Thollier, Bottom-Up LCA of Product Consumption in Belgium 43


Table 1 Economic relevance of considered product categories in Belgium, 2001

Expenditure (euro Expenditure PRODCOM PRODCOMProduct category per household) (%) (million euro) (%)

01 Food and beverages(household packaging)

4,310 15.0% 15,706 13.2% (10%)a

02 Building construction 6,028 21.0% 7,878 6.6% (23%)a

03 Building occupancy 1,594 5.6% 1,157 1.0% (9%)a

04 Furniture, furnishing,interior

560 2.0% 5,564 4.7%

05 Household appliances(EuP)

278 1.0% 220 0.2%

06 Household goods(non-EuP)

379 1.3% 1,439 1.2%

07 Healthcare products 831 2.9% 3,932 3.3%08 Information and

communication781 2.7% 3,583 3.0%

09 Recreation and culture 1,339 4.7% 4,531 3.8%10 Personal transport 3,777 13.2% 16,651 14.0%11 Textile and footwear 1,505 5.3% 774 0.7%

Total (scope of study) 20,268 70.7% 57,967 48.8%Total (householdexpenditure; productionPRODCOM) 28,653 118,747

a Including NON-PRODCOM sectors.

relevance (see table 1) is defined as % produc-tion (of total value Prodcom) is higher than %consumption expenditure (of total value house-hold expenditure), the following products standout:

Furniture (of product category 04): approx-imately 25% of this value is seats for motorvehicles and it can be assumed that anotherlarge share is for non-household consump-tion.

Textile floor covering and interior textileproducts (of product category 04): interiortextiles account for approximately 50% oftotal textile industry trade, and more than90% of total textile industry trade is ex-ported.

Pharmaceutical products (of product cate-gory 07).

Radio, television, and communicationequipment: Prodcom sectors communi-cation appliances (of product category08) and audio-video, photographic equip-ment (of product category 09) mainly

cover parts manufacturing and business-to-business equipment.

Books, newspapers, andmagazines (of prod-uct category 09): about 25% of this Prod-com value is due to advertising brochuresand business catalogues. It can be as-sumed that another large share is for non-household markets.

Motor vehicles (of product category 10):14% Prodcom. Approximately 62% is forpassenger vehicles and 15% is for goodstransport; the remainder is parts and acces-sories manufacturing.

Bottom-Up Life-CycleAssessment

Goal and Scope

An important criterion for determining prior-ity product categories is the environmental im-pact incurred due to volume consumed by Bel-gian residents during 1 year (20002001). Theenvironmental relevance of a product category



should be based on an assessment where all rele-vant product life-cycle stages (production, distri-bution, use, end-of-life phase) are considered; theselected impact categories are those consideredby the general debate today to be relevant to sus-tainable development and given bymany existingenvironmental policies (at the levels of Europe,Belgium, regions), where the definition of prod-ucts, impact indicators, and weighting factors isconsistent with existing indicators and policy tar-gets; and finally, the methodology should allow(preferably easy) data retrieval, analysis, and re-porting.

The present study is not a comparative LCAaccording to ISO definitions. Simply put, thegoal is not to compare comparable products basedon the same functional unit. The goal is ratherto compare the impacts due to consumptionof different product categories within an eco-nomic/regional boundary and, as a final objec-tive, identify those categories where the burdenis highest and the potential for improvement ex-ists. For this purpose no strict standards apply.But given that the first steps in the bottom-upapproach are environmental impact assessmentsof individual products, the ISO standards relat-ing to attributional product LCA should apply.Here, there are some evident practical drawbacks.Doing this for all marketed products is sheerdrudgery and would also require data retrievalfrom all individual manufacturers. For this rea-son, base-case products have to be selected orvirtually composed, representing an average foreach particular product category. This requiresperiodic in-depth studies on the market sectorand also technical analysis and performance as-sessment of the products. This is an importantdrawback of bottom-up LCA, and nonexistentwith the approach based on input-output analy-sis, but it is a requirement for examining productimprovement potentials.

The system boundaries, as referred to in ISO14040 standards on LCA, are second-level, thusincluding the indirect inputs needed to producethe direct inputs (energy and raw and auxiliarymaterials). Capital goods are not included in thesystem boundary.

In terms of geographical boundaries, andmainly relating to the manufacturing stage ofproducts, the study used a combination of global

and EU average values for resource use and emis-sions. In the environmental analysis of productssold to households in Belgium, the actual ge-ographical origins of all constituent materials,unit processes, and so forth cannot be tracedback through the entire product supply chain.For the use phase of products (mainly for fuel-and electricity-using products) and also for theend-of-life phase of products, the study uses av-erage values for resource use and emissions inBelgium.

In the assessment method, a specific approachon recycling allocation has been taken. The keyissue about recycling is that an integrated productpolicy should stimulate both the demand side andthe supply side of recycling and do both equally,for instance, by stimulating the selection of re-cycled materials for new products on one handand applying principles of design for recyclingon the other hand. Another point is not to dis-criminate between (mainly material) sectors asa consequence of methodological choices. It ismainly the metal sector that has expressed itsconcern that plastics are favored in many recy-cling allocation procedures, neglecting the factthat metals can be recycled endlessly, as is com-mon practice, whereas most other materials can,in the best case, displace virgin materials or en-ergy only once (Birat and Yonezawa 2006).

Two different approaches exist, as defined inISO 14042, with the following order:

1. avoid allocation by system enlargement2. define a relevant criterion for allocation

To the present day, there is no standard con-vention and the choice is left to the LCA prac-titioner. Both approaches are being used in LCAstudies. System enlargement has the advantage ofavoiding the problem. The disadvantage is thatin the case of a comparison of different systems,they become very complex, including a wholerange of imported processes. As a consequence,the discriminative power between the results be-comes very weak. For this reason it was preferredto present the results in the form of a difference:the substitution method, where valuation of re-cycling and energy recovery is on the basis of theprimary processes they are able to avoid.

Still, this does not fully comply with the in-terpretation that recycling answers to economic



laws of supply and demand and should be equallystimulated at both ends of the product life cycle.Also, the method should be relevant both formaterial types where recycling is suffering fromdeficiencies on the supply side, for instance, theincreasing demand for metal scrap, and for ma-terials where more severe problems occur on thedemand side, as in the case of the productionof secondary plastics, which seems not to be inproportion to their application in new products.

Where recycling is credited 100% at the frontof the life cycle, the contribution of selectingsecondary materials is visible in lowering the im-pact at the production stage, thereby stimulatingdemand for recycled materials. In the second ap-proach, where recycling is credited 100% at theend of the life cycle, only the impact of the virginmaterial is visible at the production stage (irre-spective of whether the product really containssecondary materials or not) and the reward for re-cycling becomes visible at the end of life, therebyincreasing the supply of recycled materials. Theoutcomes of both cases are the same and shouldtherefore make no difference, but the perceptionis different. Accounting for recycling processesboth 100% at the beginning and at the end oflife results in double counting of the credits foravoided processes and the actual impacts of recy-cling processes (the cost side). In this study, wehave proposed to apply a 50/50 rule. Of course,other principles could be thought of such as moredynamic approaches differentiating the marketmechanisms for specific recycled material cate-gories, but that would increase the complexityof the methodology disproportionately. In gen-eral, it is less usual to include recycling credits100% at the stage of materials selection and evenless conventional to apply a 50/50 rule, butasmentionedthere is no standard convention inthis respect and the choice depends on the pur-pose.

Data Inventory

Background DataA detailed data inventory at the level of back-

ground data (materials, energy carriers, and unitprocesses) for each product study was not feasi-ble; hence the proposal to compile basic impactindicators for a representative set of commonly

used materials and processes according to anagreed upon consistent methodology (consideredthe backbone aspects of the model; see figure 1).At the time of the study, many such data werealready available in databases, but sources werescattered and outcomes varied widely accordingto applied methodology, impact categories, re-gion, and timeframe of the studies.

LCA data for materials and processes were re-trieved from the best sources that were readilyavailable at the time. This includes data from theLCA tool SimaPro and the following databases:BUWAL 250, ETH-ESU 96, IDEMAT 96, andIVAM LCA DATA 3.0. Also, emission inven-tories, for instance CORINAIR 1994, and otheravailable data sources were used.

In general, it can be concluded that the avail-ability and reliability of emission data related toenergy were relatively high. For ozone-depletingsubstances (ODS) and heavy metals (HM), dataquality from available LCA data sources on ma-terial production seems rather low and outdated.Also, for ODS related to consumer products, animportant share of total impact will stem fromthe use and the disposal stages of these products(leakage of refrigerants, use of detergents, etc.).These aspects should be investigated in more de-tail in the future, because this was not feasible inthe contractual period of the project.

ODS were presumed negligible for other thanaerosols, cooling appliances, and air conditioningsystems (building and vehicles) requiring the useof refrigerants. For policy support, priority prod-ucts affecting ozone depletion have been identi-fied in other studies (Econotec 1999 and Ecofys1999). In the Flemish part of Belgium, a totalof about 500 tons of ODS was emitted in 1999(VMM 2000), of which one-third came fromblowing agents, and one-third came from leak-age of refrigerants from cooling appliances and airconditioning (during the use and disposal phase).The final third came from all other sources com-bined.Having such a large proportion of the emis-sions come from only two sources is a clear indi-cation for product priority setting.

Data on water use for the production stagesof materials or products are rarely available incommon LCA databases and often no distinc-tion is made between water from public supplyor ground and seawater use. Water consumption



DEFINITION PRODUCT(S)average representative for

category

DEFINITION OFPRODUCTS,

PRODUCT LIST

DATA RETRIEVALimpact indicators

METHODOLOGYMARKET-LCA

DEFINITION OF POLICY-RELEVANT IMPACT

INDICATORS

HARMONIZEDMETHODOLOGY ANDPRODUCT LIST (ISO

14040 NOT IMPERATIVE)

HARMONIZED (PUBLIC)LCIA DATABASE(incl. step Impact

Assessment)

(PUBLIC) MARKETSTATISTICS

PERIODICAL STUDIES/EMISSION

INVENTORIES /ENERGY STATISTICS

...

BACKBONE

REFERENCESITUATION

(yr. 2000-2001)

DATA RETRIEVAL& ANALYSISmarket data

LCA (ISO 1040)

SCENARIOS(yr. 1990-2010)

MATERIALS, ENERGY,PROCESSES

PRODUCTS

Model parameters:-Annual sales in region (physical amount)-Product market lifetime (years)-Annual stock of products (calculated fromsales, product lifetime, and demography)-BOM (bill of materials) for new products-Use phase aspects (energy use,consumables, water use, etc.)-Emissions, leakage from product-Waste scenario for products (% recycling,%recovery, %non-recovery)-Technical/functional analysis of products:mainly required when proposing substitutionmeasures(-Life cycle cost data) ~ future research

DATA PROVIDED BYSTAKEHOLDERS &POLICY MAKERS

(Fixed)

A. GOAL AND SCOPE DEFINITION

B. INVENTORY

MARKET-LCA

C. ASSESSMENT

EVALUATION OFMEASURES

DEFINITION OFSTRATEGIES &

MEASURES

DATA RETRIEVAL& ANALYSIS

technical productanalysis

Figure 1 Schematic overview of the bottom-up life-cycle assessment approach.

in the use phase of products has been modeled,but it is evident that it reflects sanitary productsalmost exclusively.

A reliable and representative dataset of basicimpact indicators for a broad spectrum of mate-rials, energy carriers, electricity, unit processes,and so forth is the backbone of a good bottom-upLCA study. This study suffered from the draw-back that, at the time, few consistent and rep-resentative LCA data were available and datahad to be retrieved from scattered sources. In themeantime, more reliable and extended datasetshave become available, such as the EcoInventdatabase (Frischknecht et al. 2004), various con-ducted BAT (best available techniques) studies,and so forth, and attempts are beingmade to com-pile EU-representative basic indicators in otherproduct-related studies such as the Energy-usingProducts (EuP) project (Kemna et al. 2005).

Product and Market DataPortions of the most important product stud-

ies retrieved on market data, bill of materials,energy use, product life, and waste scenarios arebriefly mentioned here. Note that for some prod-uct categories abundant studies and informationare readily available in the literature, whereas forother categories educated guesses had to bemade.It is therefore suggested to conduct detailed prod-uct studies to make results more robust and to dothis in close consultation with the affected indus-try stakeholders.

Data on waste management in Belgium weretaken from the Flanders Environment andNatureReport (MIRA), published yearly by the FlemishEnvironment Agency (VMM), and communica-tions with the Public Waste Agency of Flanders(OVAM) for the region of Flanders, communi-cations with the Directorate General for Natural



Resources and the Environment (DGRNE)of the Ministry of the Walloon Region, andstudies on waste management (Jacobs et al. 2003;Wellens and Jacobs 2001). Data on packagingwere drawn from communications with and pub-lications of the organizations FOST PLUS andthe Interregional Packaging Commission (IVC).Data on building and building products camefrom projections from the Locatelli model (IDD2001), NIS statistics on housing, and commu-nications with several branches of the buildingsector. Also, the study builds on the results ofprevious work done by VITO and ICEDD onpackaging and building (Theunis 2001; Theunisand Franck 2001). Data on cars were taken fromthe road emission model TEMAT developed byVITO and from communications with and pub-lications of the sector federations FEBIAC (theBelgian Federation of the Car and Two-WheelerIndustries) and FEBELAUTO, a nonprofitorganization set up to ensure proper implemen-tation of the End-of-Life Vehicle Directive.From the National Institute for Statistics (NIS)in Belgium, market data for several electricalappliances (penetration rates) and statistics oncar stock and sales could be retrieved. Part of themarket data for various other products was deliv-ered by the Center for Research and Informationof the Organizations of Consumers (CRIOC), aBelgium-based consumer organization (Fey andGuiot 2001). Various other sources and scattereddata were also consulted (for instance, Ecolabelstudies; Labouze et al. 2003). Still, publiclyavailable market data for products are a generalproblem. Data from official statistics (NIS,EUROSTAT) are often only available at veryhigh aggregation levels and/or only in monetaryunits and not in physical units. Other, oftencommercial, sources of data do not allow publicuse, or if they do, use and disclosure are limited.Besides this, such data are often not transparent.

All data on materials, energy, processes, andproducts were managed in an Access databasedeveloped by ICEDD. This tool was also used ina successive study to develop scenarios for theevaluation of measures (Nemry et al. 2002).

Impact Assessment

Briefly, an overview is given of the environ-mental impact indicators that were considered inthe study.

Resources and WasteAn overview is given of the energy, resources,

and waste indicators applied in the study:

Energy consumption: primary gross energyrequirement in megajoules (MJ)

Water consumption: water from public sup-ply in liters (L). Not included is ground- orseawater use for purposes such as cooling.

Material use: specified for categories metals,plastics, minerals, and others, in kilograms(kg).

Abiotic resources: depletion in kg of anti-mony equivalents (van Oers et al. 2002)

Waste generation: solid waste to landfill inkg. Although requested by the contractorFSE, it was impossible tomake an inventoryof hazardous waste due to lack of data in ex-isting life-cycle inventory (LCI) databases.

EmissionsThe following emission-related impacts were

considered in this study and the sources of theapplied characterization factors are shown intable 2.

Also, emissions of heavy metals to air andwater are included; however, no characterizationfactors were applied. Existing LCAweighting fac-tors such as heavy metals from Eco-Indicator 95(Goedkoop 1995) or human toxicity and eco-toxicity factors (Huijbregts et al. 2000) were con-sidered and rejected. Until there are new scien-tific and policy developments, heavy metals willbe inventoried in a quantitative manner only(kg HM), which means that precautions shouldbe taken with the results on metals emissions.The metals concerned are lead (Pb), cadmium(Cd), mercury (Hg), arsenic (As), chromium(Cr), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), selenium (Se),and zinc (Zn).

It has been suggested that persistent organicpollutants should also be included. Because, how-ever, these mainly relate to pesticides, they onlyplay an important role in food products, whichare excluded from this study. Other productcategories of relevance could be those includ-ing textile products (cotton or other naturalfibers).

The above-mentioned indicators of resourceuse and waste are not LCA impact categories inthe sense of midpoints, or endpoints, except for



Table 2 Characterization factors used in the study

Global warming potential (IPCCa )GWP100 CO2 CO N2O CH4 C2F6 SF6 Other

CO2-eq. 1 1.57 310 21 9,200 23,900

Ozone depletion potential (Montrealb)ODP CFC-11 CFC-12 CFC-113 CFC-114 CFC-115 H-1301 Other

CFC11-eq. 1 1 0.8 1 0.6 10

Acidification potential (NOH LCA manual [Heijungs et al. 1992])AP SO2 NOX NH3 NO HCl HF Other

SO2-eq. 1 0.7 1.88 1.07 0.88 1.6

Photochemical substances (NOH LCA manual [Heijungs et al. 1992])PCS CO CH2O CH4 VOC, other

C2H4-eq. 0.04 0.3 0.007 0.4-0.5

Eutrophication potential (NOH LCA manual, Heijungs et al. 1992)EP P P2O5 PO43 N NH4+ NO3 COD

PO43-eq. 3.06 1.34 1 0.42 0.33+ 0.1 0.022aUpdate of IPCC (2001) was not available at time of study; hence the previous version was used.bCharacterization factors are mentioned in Regulation (EC) No 2037/2000.Note: -eq. = -equivalents.

resource depletion. Materials use and waste aresuperseded by their consequent processing andemissions and are thus reflected in the otherindicators. In consultation with the contrac-tor FSE, the proposed indicators are consideredto be the scientific consensus, most acceptablein the context of policy support in the shortrun, and easy to interpret. Still, decision mak-ers have the (difficult) task of basing their judg-ment on the complete picture provided by thewhole set of indicators presented. The calcula-tion of an endpoint indicator was not requestedin the tender and was also perceived, at thetime, as too uncertain to support policy decisionmaking.

Results

The results at the highest aggregation level areshown in Table 3 as the percentage contributionof the product group relative to the total for eachimpact category. Because products can be aggre-gated according to different principles, the results

for some alternate aggregated categories are alsoshown: all energy-using products (referring to theEuP Directive), and all packaging (referring tothe Packaging Directive). The relevance of in-dustrial packaging is shown as a factor comparedto the total impact from household packaging.

Table 3 shows that building structure, buildingoccupancy, and personal transport can be con-sidered important because they cover almost alltop-ranking product categories for all consideredimpacts, amounting to more than 60% of over-all environmental impact. One exception is in-formation and communication, which also con-tributes largely to acidification.

In the original report of the study, packagingwas treated somewhat differently. Household andindustrial packaging were considered togetherand mentioned as one product category amongthe other function-based categories. Because thisis not consistent with the general approach, theywere reassigned to the separate functional cat-egories and recalculated for the purpose of thisarticle. In table 3, under alternate aggregations,



Table 3 Results at highest product aggregation level, as contribution (%) to total impact indicator

ENER

GY

MA

TER

IAL

USE

RES

OUR

CE D

EPLE

TIO

N

ACI

DIFI

CATI

ON

GRE

ENHO

USE

PHO

TOCH

EMIC

AL

MET

ALS

TO

AIR

MET

ALS

TO

WAT

ER

WA

STE

(DIS

POSA

L)

6 83 69 13 11 6

% contribution to impact indicator

PRODUCT CATEGORY (AGG1) 8 9 84

39 BUILDING STRUCTURE

0 1 16 35 47 1 6 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

BUILDING OCCUPANCY

10 1 3 8 6 5 2 7 1 FURNITURE

0 1 1 2 1 1 0 0 1HOUSEHOLD GOODS (EuP)

1 2 1 3 1 1 0 0 134 3 16

HOUSEHOLD GOODS (NON-EuP)

27 38 27 71 69 3 HEALTHCARE PRODUCTS

2 0 1 2 1 1 6 4 0PERSONAL TRANSPORT

5 5 11 3 4 2 2 5 RECREATION & CULTURE

2 3

3 1 9 2 3 7 1 3INFORMATION & COMMUNICATION

1 0 0 8 1 5 1 0 0FOOD & BEVERAGE PACKAGING

74 83 69 68 73 74 TEXTILE PRODUCTS

71 69 84 TOP CONTRIBUTO84

RS (60th percentile)85 84 84 90 87 85 TOP CONTRIBUTO

90 88 RS (80th percentile)

90 92 90 92 91 89

Other categories >5% contribution

2 4 2 12 3 4 8 1 4x 1

x 1.2

x 5.4

x 1.2

ALTERNATE AGGREGATIONS

x 1.1

x 1.2

x 0.8

x 23.5

x 1.3

HOUSEHOLD PACKAGING (% CONTRIBUTION TO TOTAL)

44 5 8 29 39 52 9 13 5

INDUSTRIAL PACKAGING (factor compared to household packaging) ALL Energy Using Products, EXCL. TRANSPORT (% contribution to total) Note: AGG1 = aggregation level 1, or highest product aggregation level; EuP = energy-using products. Darkness ofshading indicates the level of environmental impact, the highest levels being represented by the darkest shading (withthe lowest levels being represented by no shading at all).

the impacts of all packaging are again grouped.The relevance of this group seems somewhat sec-ondary, with shares in acidification and metalsto air larger than 5%, whereas the contributionsto other impact categories are rather negligible.When the relevance of food and beverage packag-ing is compared with that of all household pack-aging, the difference is relatively small. This canbe explained by the fact that food and bever-age packaging constitute >70% by weight of allhousehold packaging. The impacts from indus-

trial packaging are at least as large as those ofhousehold packaging, and the impacts from in-dustrial packaging aremuch larger for the impactsof abiotic depletion and metals to water. Notethat, as mentioned before, a precaution shouldbe taken with the results relating to metals emis-sions, primarily because there is no characteriza-tion applied. Also, emissions data on heavy met-als from packaging (de Brucker et al. 2001) aregenerally more robust than data found for otherproduct categories.



When energy-using products are dividedup according to different function-basedaggregations, their relevance seems secondary.On the other hand, when they are consideredall together, they are priority categories for var-ious energy-related impacts. This illustrates theprecautions that should be used when results arevisualized according to specific aggregation prin-ciples. Given that the importance of domesticheating and hot water could be expected, resultson electrical appliances are discussed in more de-tail in the following paragraph.

Total electricity use in Belgium, 20002001,was approximately 79.166 GWh.7 About 31%of this electricity is low-voltage use that is al-most entirely consumed by households, indus-try, and public instances (except 1% for pub-lic street lighting). Assuming average electric-ity consumption per household of 3,500 kWh8

and given 4,247,255 households,9 this amountsto a total of 14.865 GWh or 19% of total elec-tricity use. Dutch data10 give an indication onwhat this is used for: 21% goes to dishwash-ers and washing machines, 17% to cooling ap-pliances, 16% to lighting, 15% to audio andvideo equipment, 14% to heating and hot wa-ter, 4% to interior climate, 5% to cooking appli-ances, 3% to kitchen appliances, 1% to garden,hobby, and do-it-yourself appliances, 1% to per-sonal care appliances, and 3% to other. In thebottom-up LCA study, 9.840 GWh is the re-sult of the calculated electricity use of all newappliances, excluding those for heating and hotwater (product sales during 1 year; energy useduring their total life cycle). Compared to theabove estimate, which is electricity consumptionof product stock during 1 year, this is 30% less,which could mean that there is a general under-estimation of sales figures or electricity use perappliance, or a too limited diversity of electricalappliances accounted for in the study. Anotherexplanation is that the current stock of appli-ances has a much lower energy efficiency thanthat of new products sold and as a result, totalelectricity use will decrease in the future as olderappliances are replaced by new ones. In reality,the latter seems unlikely, because statistics showthe contrary, which is explained by an increas-ing market penetration rate of electrical appli-ances (except for white goods) and a generally

larger diversity of new appliances entering themarket.

Discussion and Conclusions

General Drawbacks of the Methodology

It is important to stress the general precau-tions that should be taken and explain why de-tailed results at lower aggregation levels are notpresented in this paper. Knowing the resourcesrequired to perform an exhaustive LCA for oneparticular product, according to ISO standards,this approach is not possible in a study of 1 yearfor all household product categories, even whensome substantial categories could be excludedbeforehand. The researchers and commissionerof the study are well aware that the study suf-fered from limitations and data gaps and couldtherefore not generate robust results on prior-ity products to support policy decisions. Thiswas also the position of several industry associ-ations (Joint Platform European and Interna-tional Environmental Policy 2003; Collins andNuij 2004). It seems inappropriate to discuss inmuch detail how the analyses done could be im-proved and the outcome of a market bottom-upLCA made more robust. This is mainly becausethe environmental impacts of products (EIPRO)project (Tukker et al. 2006) and various othernational projects using an approach based onextended input-output analysis (e-IOA) havedemonstrated that e-IOA is superior for the pur-pose of defining the product categories with thehighest environmental impacts from consump-tion. When the results of this Belgian study arecomparedwith other studies, the top contributingcategories are very similar at the highest level ofproduct aggregation (Tukker and Jansen 2006).In absolute results, however, the impacts froma bottom-up LCA seem rather underestimated.This can be explained by constraints inherentin LCA methodology (system boundaries), thedifficulty of defining and selecting representativebase case products, and, probablymost important,market and LCA data constraints (limits in con-sistency, availability, and temporariness). Butconcluding that a similarity exists in top-rankingproduct categories from different studies (for dif-ferent regions, countries, EU) gives rise to the



questionif it makes sense to do this exerciseagain for Belgium in particular, and if satisfactioncan be taken with the outcomes of the EIPROproject.

General Value of the Methodology

Although bottom-up LCA is perhaps not thepreferred method for the purpose of evaluatingthe environmental impacts of product consump-tion in a specific country or economic region, thestudy has demonstrated that it can contributeto the evaluation of product policy measures,mainly for calculating reduction potentials andthe eco-efficiency of proposedmeasures (combin-ing the results of environmental and cost assess-ment). Other ongoing research in related policyareas such as the Energy-Using Products Direc-tive (EuP) also proposes a similar methodology(Kemna et al. 2005).

The main advantage of a bottom-up marketLCA is that impact scenarios can be calculated bychanging tangible product andmodel parameters,such as increasing the lifetime of products, chang-ing the bill of materials (BOM) of products, theweight of products, the frequency or intensity ofannual product use, energy-efficiency parametersof appliances, alternative waste treatment sce-narios, decreasing the market demand (sales) forparticular products, and/or promoting the marketdemand for more environmentally friendly prod-uct alternatives.

This can give clear insight into where in theproduct chain effects take place, reach a very highlevel of detail, and show the synergies and interre-lations that existfor instance, determining themost effective strategy, the effect of implement-ing different strategies simultaneously, synergiesthat exist when implementing a measure to re-duce a particular impact with other impacts, lo-cating possible adverse effects of certain strategieson other impacts and policy fields, and so forth.

Further Work

From a policy perspective, the approach thatwas used raises several questions and sugges-tions for further work. It seems obvious thatbesides household consumption, product group-ings used in a business-to-business context or

consumption by governments can be of equalrelevance for a product-oriented environmen-tal policy. Weidema and colleagues (2005) havegenerated this additional perspective, using aninput-output based approach. The same ques-tion can be asked about the role of services inthe framework of product-oriented environmen-tal policies. Services also require the use of mov-able goods, such as communication services, fi-nancial services, hospital and outpatient services,recreation services, and tourism. By several stake-holders it was recommended that the focus ofnational product policy initiatives should be onproduct categories where measures would sub-stantially affect local sectors, employment, im-pacts, and so forth, rather than selecting productcategories starting from a general consumption-based focus. The economic analysis shown in thispaper demonstrates that different product cat-egories become highlighted when this is takeninto account, for instance paper products, furni-ture, electrical business equipment, and textileproducts.

The comparability of bottom-up LCA studies,in particular, could be greatly enhanced if choiceson certain issues could be standardized, or at leastbe made more transparent and explicit. Settingup a standard on system boundaries, multiproductallocation, and recycling in bottom-up marketLCAs requires a somewhat different approachwith attention to avoiding double counting ofimpacts and not discriminating against materi-als due to recycling proceduresas a result ofthe different context as compared to ISO-definedLCAs. The model should enable the evaluationof the effects of measures on both new productsbrought on themarket and existing product stock.A product-oriented policy can also aim at curb-ing impacts from existing products, for instance,by changing product use patterns. Setting up andselecting policy-relevant impact indicators andcharacterization factors has to be consistent withexisting and forthcoming environmental policiesso that results can be validated with existing fig-ures and compared with quantified policy tar-gets. Also, discrepancies exist between legal def-initions of impact indicators and scientific LCAmidpoint or endpoint indicators (e.g., indicatorsof waste, resource use, heavy metals emissions,etc.). Existing studies each use their own sets of



indicators and the choice is largely up to the LCApractitioner. Clear guidelines on this aspect couldbe of great value. So far, we have not been able tofind an approach that allows splitting up the shareof product life-cycle impacts occurring inBelgiumand abroad. As a result, it is difficult to estimatehow national product-oriented policy initiativescan contribute to the success of other existingnational environmental policy targets (such asKyoto). As a consequence, it is also difficult tovalidate the outcomes of this study with reportedenvironmental impacts in Belgium.

Enhancements, and a pragmatic and less labo-rious approach to this type of study, can also beachieved by setting up of a stakeholder agreed-upon and harmonized database of impact indica-tors for materials, energy, and processes, althougha lot of work seems currently ongoing in thisarea. An important data gap identified is on haz-ardous substances content in materials/productsand the potential emission of these substancesduring the use and disposal phase of products.Although more technical product data are be-coming available on energy use and water use dueto labeling and energy efficiency initiatives, im-portant data gaps exist on material composition,product weight, market lifetime of products, andconsumer behavioral aspects of products. Thesedata are critical for a justified definition of averageproduct base cases. Although for some productcategories, data availability ranged from very lim-ited to readily available, for other categories datawere not available at all, not adequately represen-tative, or too outdated. Options for overcomingthis problem include periodic in-depth productstudies for identified relevant product categories,with intensified stakeholder involvement; or pos-sibly a structural approach by means of environ-mental product declarations delivered by manu-facturers or sectors bringing new products on themarket. A question that arises is if input-outputanalysis could not be used for the purpose of de-veloping average bills of materials representativeof average base case products.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks go to the Belgian FederalServices for the Environment, which commis-sioned the project Identifying Key Products for

the Federal Product and Environment Policy(2002), and the Federal Science Policy, whichco-financed this project and also the successivestudy Integrating climate, resource and wastepolicies through a product policy (20022004).We would also like to thank the members of theusers committee of the project, Francoise Nemry,who led the project until July 2001 and who isnow working at the EC DG JRC, and all the sci-entific experts and the Belgian Federation of En-terprises (FEB), which have reviewed and com-mented on the studies. The information in thisspecial issue may or may not reflect the officialpositions of these persons or organizations.

Notes

1. In Belgium, the policy playing field of the fed-eral government is not only constrained by na-tional versus EU competences. Implementation ofa product policy is further complicated becausecompetences are divided between the federal gov-ernment (i.e., energy, health, product standards)and the three regional authorities of Flanders,Brussels, and the Walloon Region (i.e, waste, en-vironmental policy, etc.). SeeMisonne et al. 2004.

2. 21 December 1998.Wet betreffende de pro-ductnormen ter bevordering van duurzameproductie- en consumptiepatronen en terbescherming van het leefmilieu en de volksge-zondheid, Belgisch Staatsblad 11/02/1999.

3. Some examples are desktop computers used inbusiness and government environments, trucks forfreight transport, public transport systems, streetlighting, and industrial packaging.

4. The defined product classes are somewhat differentfrom the COICOP classification.

5. National Statistics Institute (NIS), HouseholdExpenditure 2001 ().

6. NIS Industrial Production 2001 PRODCOM andNON-PRODCOM sectors: building, energy, wa-ter ().

7. BFE, Beroepsfederatie van producenten enverdelers van Elektriciteit (statistics from). One gigawatt-hour(GWh) = 106 kilowatt-hours (kWh) 3.6terajoules (TJ).

8. VREG, Vlaamse Reguleringsinstantie voor deElektriciteits en Gasmarkt.

9. NIS, demographic statistics (average household2.38 persons).



10. (note that theNetherlands have a demographic situation similarto that of Belgium).

References

Birat, J.-P. and K. Yonezawa. 2006. The value of re-cycling to society and its internalization into LCAmethodology. Preliminary draft.

Collins, M. and R. Nuij. 2004. Review of the Belgianproduct study, for the alliance for beverage cartonsand the environment (ACE). London, UK: Envi-ronmental Resources Management.

Debeuckelaere, K. 1999. De wet op de productnormen.[The product standards law.] Tijdschrift voor Mi-lieurecht 3: 170182.

De Brucker, N., J. Theunis, V. Timmermans, K. Tirez,M. vanHolderbeke, andC.Vanhoof. 2001.Heavymetals in packaging on the Belgian market. Re-port 001477. Mol, Belgium: Flemish Institute forTechnological Research (VITO).

Ecofys. 1999. Reduction of the emissions of HFCs,PFCs and SF6 in the European Union. Utrecht,the Netherlands: Ecofys.

Econotec, Ecolas. 1999. Developpement dunemethodologie dinventaire des emissions dessubstances detruisant la couche dozone et des gaz a`effet de serre HFC, PFC et SF6. [Development of amethodology for the inventory of ozone depletingsubstances and greenhouse gas substances HFC,PFC and SF6.] Brussels, Belgium: Econotec /Antwerp, Belgium: Ecolas.

Fey, N. and C. Guiot. 2001. Rapport sur les donneesrelatives aux consommations de produits domestiques.[Report about data on consumption of domesticproducts.] Confidential report. Brussels: CRIOC.

Frischknecht,R.,N. Jungbluth,H.-J.Althaus,G.Doka,T. Heck, S. Hellweg, R. Hischier, T. Nemecek, G.Rebitzer, and M. Spielmann. 2004. Overview andMethodology. Ecoinvent Report No. 1. Dueben-dorf, Switzerland: Swiss Centre for Life Cycle In-ventories.

Goedkoop, M. J. 1995. The eco-indicator 95. Fi-nal report; NOH report 9523. Amersfoort, theNetherlands: Pre Consultants.

Heijungs, R., ed. 1992. Environmental life-cycle assess-ment of products: GuideOctober 1992. Report9266. Leiden, the Netherlands: CML (Centreof Environmental Science) / Apeldoorn, theNetherlands: TNO (Netherlands Organisationfor Applied Scientific Research) / Rotterdam, theNetherlands: B&G (Fuels and Raw Materials Bu-reau).

Huijbregts, M. A. J., U. Thissen, J. B. Guinee, T. Jager,D. Kalf, D. van de Meent, A. M. J. Ragas, A. We-gener Sleeswijk, and L. Reijnders. 2000. Priorityassessment of toxic substances in life cycle assess-ment. Part I: Calculation of toxicity potentialsfor 181 substances with nested multi-media fate,exposure and effects model USES-LCA. Chemo-sphere 41(4): 541573.

IDD (Institut pour un developpement durable). 2001.Locatelli: Un mode`le socio-demographique duparc delogements. [Locatelli: A socio-demographic modelof housing in Belgium.] Namur, Belgium : IDD.

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).2001. Climate change 2001: The scientific basis.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Jacobs,A., B.Wellens, andR.Dijkmans. 2003.GidsAf-valverwerkingstechnieken. Uitgave 2. [Guide wastetreatment techniques. Edition 2]. Ghent, Bel-gium: Academia Press.

Joint Platform European and International Environ-mental Policy. 2003. Position integrated productpolicy, comments on the methodology used in the Bel-gian study, September 2003. [Members of JointPlatform are industry federations FEB, UWE,UEB, VEV.] Brussels, Belgium: Federation of En-treprises in Belgium (VBO).

Kemna, R., M. van Elburg, W. Li, and R. van Hol-steijn. 2005. Eco-design of energy-using productsA methodology study. Interim Report, study forDG ENTR, Unit ENTR/G/3. Brussels, Belgium.. Accessed 10 October2005.

Labouze, E., V. Monier, Y. Le Guern, and J.-B. Puyou.2003. Study on external environmental effects relatedto the lifecycle of products and services. Final Re-port version 2. Paris: European Commission, Di-rectorate General Environment, Directorate ASustainable Development and Policy Support,BIO Intelligence Service/O2 France.

Misonne, D., K. Bodard, S. Horvat, L. Vanwalle, M.Pallemaerts, L. Lavrysen, and N. de Sadeleer.2004. Juridisch Vademecum voor een Milieuvrien-delijk Federaal Productbeleid. [Juridicial hand-book federal environmental product policy.] Re-port D/2004/1191/36. Brussels, Belgium: FederaalWetenschapsbeleid.

Nemry, F., K. Thollier, B. Jansen, and J. Theunis. 2002.Identifying key products for the federal product andenvironment policy. Final report. Institut Wallonde developpement economique et social etdamenagement du territoire ASBL and VlaamseInstelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek(VITO) for the Belgian Federal Services ofEnvironment, Department on Product Policy.



.Accessed May 2006.

Theunis, J. 2001. Greenhouse gas emissions and materialflows. II. Production and use of beverage packaging.Mol, Belgium: VITO.

Theunis, J. and S. Franck. 2001. Greenhouse gas emis-sions and material flows. III. Materials used for pack-aging and building: Plastics, paper and cardboard, andaluminium. Mol, Belgium: VITO.

Thollier, K., B. Jansen, P. Claeys, and M. Bounkhay.2005. Integrating climate, resource and wastepolicies through a product policy. Final report.ICEDD and VITO for Belgian Science Policy.Brussels, Belgium: Belgian Science Policy.. Accessed 10 October 2005.

Tukker, A., G. Huppes, S. Suh, R. Heijungs, J. Guinee,A. de Koning, T. Geerken, B. Jansen, M. vanHolderbeke, and P Nielsen. 2006. Environmentalimpacts of products. Seville, Spain : European Sci-ence and Technology Observatory of the JointResearch Center (ESTO/IPTS).

Tukker, A. and B. Jansen. 2006. Environmental im-pacts of products: A detailed review of studies.Journal of Industrial Ecology 10(3): 159182.

Van Oers, L., A. de Koning, J. B. Guinee, and G.Huppes. 2002. Abiotic resource depletion in LCA.Rijkswaterstaat, the Netherlands: Road and Hy-

draulic Engineering Institute of the Dutch Min-istry of Transport, Public Works andWater Man-agement.

VMM (Flemish Environment Agency). 2001. MIRA-T 2000. Milieu- en natuurrapport Vlaanderen:themas. [Flanders Environment and NatureReport 2000: Themes.] Mechelen, Belgium:VMM.

Weidema, B. P., A. M. Nielsen, K. Christiansen, G.Norris, P. Nottem, S. Suh, and J. Madsen. 2005.Prioritisation within the integrated product policy.Copenhagen, Denmark: 2.-0 LCA Consultantsfor Danish EPA.

Wellens, B. and A. Jacobs. 2001. Industriele pro-cessen voor de verwerking van specifieke afvalstoffen:Socio-economische studie. [Industrial processes forthe treatment of specific waste streams: Socio-economical study.] Brussels: ERM/Mol: VITO,Belgium.

About the Authors

Bart Jansen is a researcher at the Flemish In-stitute for Technological Research (VITO) in Mol,Belgium.Karine Thollier is a researcher at the Institutde Conseil et dEtudes en Developpement Durable asbl(ICEDD) in Namur, Belgium.


bottom-up life-cycle:assessment of product consumption in belgium

Documents