LCA and Waste Management: Communicating Results in Great Britain

1
LCA and Waste Management Communicating Results
in Great Britain

• Simon Aumônier
• Environmental Resources Management

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UK Background

• Proctor Gamble IWM life cycle inventory in 1995
• Waste Strategy 2000 the national strategy
• Encourages the use of LCA as a tool for informing
  waste management decisions
• Environment Agencys WISARD life cycle tool
• Piloted with 15 municipalities
• Released in 1999
• Used by many municipalities consultancies
• Guidance documents recognise decision-aiding role

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What Do We Want To Communicate?

• Why using LCA is a good idea
• What are the waste management systems that have
  been studied
• How they have been studied
• What are the relative environmental advantages
  and disadvantages of the different systems
• The benefits of moving from one system to another
• The scale of potential impacts in a wider
  context, including costs

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The Audience

• Policy-makers at government level
• Officers of municipalities
• Elected councillors
• Of municipalities or regions
• The public
• Other stakeholders
• Non-governmental organisations
• The waste management industry
• Largely non-scientists

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What Do Decision-Makers Need?

• There is a wider recognition of the environmental
  dimension to waste management policy
• Socially-responsible decisions maximise benefit,
  including that to the environment
• Flexibility with regard to the activities
  analysed and impacts of concern
• Robust and defensible techniques, with
  appropriate standards
• Available tools to assist analysis

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How Does LCA Meet These Needs?

• Technique for assessing the environmental aspects
  and potential impacts associated with... (ISO
  14040)
• Standardised and growing peer group
• Holistic assessment of environmental impact
• Avoids displacement or burden-shifting
• Clarifies advantages and disadvantages
• Informs cost-effectiveness analysis

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What Are We Studying With LCA?

• Integrated waste management systems
• Options for managing and disposing of wastes
• Summary flow diagrams
• Clarify what has been assessed
• What is included and what is excluded
• Upstream and downstream sub-systems
• How the benefits of materials and energy recovery
  are accounted for
• ISO standards, best practice and peer review

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System Flow Diagram
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Impacts

• Provide a clear definition of the potential
  impacts being assessed
• Decision-makers may have a strong preference for
  the familiar...for example human toxicity
• They may also be concerned about particular
  environmental flows...incurring double-counting
• Beware of the audience jumping to conclusions
  about the presumed nature of the impact

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Results

• Scientific notation
• Units and how equivalency is calculated
• Negative numbers
• Challenging pre-conceptions
• Different levels of reporting may be appropriate
  for different audiences
• Where impacts are incurred
• Trade-offs between impacts
• Determining significance

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Reporting Results (1)
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Reporting Results (2)
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Comparators

• Using a familiar alternative source of the
  impact
• Energy consumption per capita/household/town...
• Car km travelled
• Water consumption per capita/household/town...
• Establish the extent of equivalence
• Car travel is associated with a range of
  emissions, as well as congestion, resource
  consumption, accidents etc.

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Normalisation And Context

• Numbers alone insufficient to convey significance
• The nature of the impact must be explained
• Use inventories for normalisation of impacts
• Global
• National
• Local
• Assistance in determining significance
• Government and Regulator indicators and priorities

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Summary

• Studies are difficult to interpret and
  communicate
• LCA is poorly understood by decision-makers
• Clarity in reporting
• Credibility in analysis
• Assist with the application of results