Integrated Waste Management Its role in a LifeCycle Economy Guido Sonnemann United Nations Environme

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Integrated Waste Management -Its role in a
Life-Cycle EconomyGuido SonnemannUnited
Nations Environment ProgrammeDivision of
Technology, Industry and EconomicsProduction and
Consumption BranchStrategy Unit
Conference on Integrated Waste Management Life
Cycle Assessment Prague, 13-16 April, 2004
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Overview

• UNEP who we are and what we do
• 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable
  consumption and production
• Life Cycle Initiative
• Integrated approach to resources and waste
• Invitation to further discussion

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UNEP - Mission

• To provide leadership and encourage partnership
  in caring for the environment by inspiring,
  informing, and enabling nations and peoples to
  improve their quality of life without
  compromising that of future generations.
• Environment for Development

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UNEP 3 roles

• Assess the State of the Worlds Environment
  Understand Env. Challenges (GEO)
• Stimulate solutions to environmental problems
• Promoting International Environmental Law
• Voluntary Initiatives
• Build capacity and networks to enable
  implementing solutions

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Current situation a quick assessment

• Productivity/efficiency gains being overtaken by
  production increases (rebound effects)
• Problems of production process understood but
  those of the use and disposal of a product still
  largely unknown
• Emerging global consumer class
• Environmental concerns not integrated into
  economic and social programmes
• De-linking of economic growth from environmental
  damage needed

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Malmö Declaration
We have at our disposal the human and material
resources to achieve sustainable development, not
as an abstract concept, but as a concrete
reality. Our efforts must be linked to the
development of cleaner and more resource
efficient technologies for a life-cycle
economy. (Ministers of Environment, First
Ministerial Environment Forum 31st May 2000)
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World Summit on SD in Johannesburg

• Plan of implementation Chapter III, paragraph
  14
• promote the development of a 10 year framework
  of programmes in support of regional and national
  initiatives to accelerate the shift towards SD
• improve the products and services provided,
  while reducing environmental and health impacts,
  using, where appropriate, science-based
  approaches, such as life-cycle analysis

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Main lessons learnt since Rio

• Instruments (regulatory framework, voluntary
  measures and economic instruments).
• Integrated life-cycle based tools to promote
  changes in the unsustainable patterns of
  consumption and production.
• Sectoral approach and integration of
  environmental considerations into sectoral
  policies.

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The 10-year framework has to make a difference by
...

• Focusing on concrete outputs and by avoiding SCP
  Flying Circus
• Moving to implementation by means of pilot
  projects in the following two areas
• meeting basic needs of the poor (following the
  thematic cycle of CSD)
• resource efficiency in selected industry sectors
  and for selected areas,
• Establishing partnerships for voluntary
  initiatives
• Setting a legislative framework on product
  information

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The world behind the product

• Life cycle based product considerations
• multi-criteria design - eco-efficiency, product
  safety, dematerialisation and recyclability
• embedded resources and impacts
• end-of-life conversion/reuse/recycling/disposal
• design for recycling systems, not just
  recyclability
• reverse manufacturing reverse distribution
• residue disposal

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What are the management tools?

• Changing operations towards sustainable
  development by
• life-cycle management of products , incl.
  recycling
• industrial ecology - collective management of
  issues
• assessment tools - LCA, EnTA, EIA, env. auditing
• programmes as CP, SC, PSS, EMAS
• performance-based regulations, international
  conventions
• public reporting - CER (GRI), GEO
• ?Relevance to waste industry

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Europe and the world

• Advanced vrs. (often) Ad.Hoc.
• Europe eco-efficiency, IPP, LC thinking
• South lack of data, methodology, financing.
• NOT ENOUGH!
• TRADE globalisation makes for an interdependent
  world...

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UNEPs focus of work on LCA

• Translate life cycle thinking into practice
• Reach out to those unfamiliar with LCA,
  especially in developing countries
• Report on level of acceptance and adoption of LCA
• Make the tool reliable and its results comparable
• Keep it simple and user-friendly

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UNEP SETAC
International Life Cycle Partnership to put life
cycle approaches into practice
http//www.uneptie.org/sustain/lcinitiative
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Mission andoverall goals

• Develop and disseminate practical tools for
  evaluating the opportunities, risks, and
  trade-offs, associated with products and services
  over their whole life cycle.
• -----------
• Facilitate the access to knowledge and datafor
  SMEs and developing countries
• in order to foster the use in Consumers,
• Governments and Industry decisions"
• ------------
• Implement the ISO framework

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LCIn Overview

• ILCP International Life Cycle Panel Involve the
  relevant stakeholders
• LCM Life Cycle Management Integrate LC
  thinking into decision making
• LCI Life Cycle Inventory Get the right data to
  the users
• LCIA Life Cycle Impact Assessment Provide the
  best available indicators
• LCR Life Cycle activities in Regions Create
  capacity in all regions

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LCIn Partners

• Sponsoring
• ACE
• APME
• Canada
• EcoRecycle Victoria
• GM
• Germany
• ICMM
• Netherlands
• Quebec
• Switzerland

• Supporting
• AIST, Japan
• Brazilian LC Association
• CI
• Eco Global, Costa Rica
• Indian Society of LCA
• ISO
• US EPA

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LCIn Ongoing work

• Surveys on user needs, data availability and
  other relevant issues
• Workshops to share experiences and acquire
  knowledge
• Publications to promote life cycle approaches
• WGs with task forces peer review groups
• Website as central contact point to access
  information provided by the Initiative
• Quarterly LC.net bulletin and communicationby
  SETAC Globe, ISIE news and Int J LCA.

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Exploration Group Integrated Resource and Waste
Management (IRWM)

• With a focus on life cycle of materials rather
  than of products IRWM was identified as issue for
  a potential crosscutting Task Force whose aim
  would be
• to increase the linkages of existing integrated
  resource and waste management strategies with the
  work on life cycle approaches for products and
  services within the Initiative
• to provide an overview and international forum
  for the sharing of experiences with IRWM
• to identify further key partners and target
  groups and establish adequate network,
• to give guidance on IRWM strategies for different
  target groups in a global context.

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Integrated approach toresources and waste

• to include resources and waste issues as integral
  part of SCP programmes
• to encourage industry to embrace corporate
  responsibility, performance instruments and
  industry codes for resource use and waste
  management
• to promote performance-based regulations by
  governments
• to foster evaluation where recycling (and other
  waste treatment options) is beneficial for
  society overall
• to consider in this assessments local aspects as
  for instance the demographic situation that
  determines transport distances
• to ensure that recycling itself does not lead to
  secondary impacts
• To result in practical outcomes, management
  decisions taken as a result of such assessments
  need to be greatly enhanced

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UNEPs message on IWM

• Based on lessons learned from LCA
• The notion of waste management needs to
  eventually evolve beyond simply devising the best
  technology for this and that waste
• Proper assessment can show which of several
  technical and material options is environmentally
  and socially preferable (as well as being
  economic)
• To demonstrate how such assessments can be
  undertaken, UNEP is promoting the use of several
  instruments, mainly EnTA and LCA

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Key task ahead

• to promote a life-chain approach to materials
  management
• to more closely link the manufacturer and the
  waste manager in an optimisation of the overall
  system of energy, materials and waste flow.
• to take a more integrated product life-cycle
  approach, in particular for manufacturing
  industry to avoid that design for recyclability
  remain theoretical and products now labeled
  recyclable in the waste stream because
  collection/ recycling system is not in place
• to create stronger links between waste management
  operations and the manufacturing and marketing
  phases of a product and how the organisations
  concerned with waste management can be more
  closely linked with both industry and consumers.

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Invitation to further discussion I

• How can we support a chain management approach
  to materials where the manufacturer and the
  recycler are more closely linked in an overall
  optimisation of energy, materials and waste
  flows?
• What is necessary to create bigger manufacturing
  systems where an integrated, collective approach
  to production and consumption is designed that
  allows synergies and improved recycling?

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Invitation to further discussion II

• Which tools and methodologies have to be used for
  a systematic evaluation process and which
  concepts we might to integrate?
• In which way the UNEP/ SETAC Life Cycle
  initiative can support this discussion? Is there
  any need for further activities by UNEP?

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Next steps?

• This workshop and the conference are a starting
  point
• Tell us what you want and what you are missing
  for better shaping the work of the exploration
  group!
• Who are potential partners to contact?
• ?Participate in the exploration group/ task force
  on IRWM!
• First meeting
• in reception hall of hotel after todays
  sessions of the conference

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Please contact us!
For more information and to find out how you can
get involved. United Nations Environment
Programme Division of Technology, Industry
Economics Production and Consumption Unit 39-43
Quai André Citroën 75739 Paris, Cedex 15,
France Tel [phone] Fax [phone]
1474 E-mail sc_at_unep.fr http//www.uneptie.org/sus
tain/lcinitiative