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Ecospace Audit - An input Analysis for Products

1. Sustainability

1.1 Introduction

In June 1992 the major UNCED conference on sustainable development took place in Brazil. The following is probably the most widely known and accepted of more than sixty definitions of sustainable development. It is from "Our Common Future", the 1987 publication of the WCED Commission (better known as the Brundtland Commission).

"Basically, sustainable development is a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development and the institutional change are in harmony and increase the present as well as the future possibility to accommodate human needs (WCED, 1987)".

Ever since "Our Common Future", it has become impossible to do without the concept of sustainable development. The concept is, however, subject to many different interpretations. Some people get carried away and translate sustainable development as sustainable growth. Various approaches were therefore developed by both the NGO and business community to make the general definition of ‘sustainable development’ more concrete. A non-exhaustive list is presented below of examples of approaches to define or implement sustainable development more concretely.

The Ecological Footprint developed by Wackernagel and Rees, for example, recalculates resource use in terms of hectares and aggregates CO2 emissions, wood and land use to a single indicator (www.edg.net.mx/~mathiswa/).

The Global Commons Institute (GCI) developed a ‘Contraction and Convergence scenario’ which combines environmental and equity concerns in the area of climate change (www.gn.apc.org/gci).

The Wuppertal Institute rightfully points to what they call the ‘rucksacks’ that are behind each kilogram of product consumed in consumer countries. As a guiding tool they developed the MIPS concept (Material Intensity Per Service unit) (www.wupperinst.org). At the company level, studies were done on the completion of Eco-Audits with a flow analysis of the energy and material input and output of the company (Liedtke c.s., Wuppertal papers 69 and 72).

The Natural Step developed a process approach to improve the quality of production and products in a more environmentally sound direction and applies a set of four rules for sustainable development. "The Natural Step concepts allow top management to view environmental considerations in a systematic way and to integrate them into corporate strategy for long term prosperity" Kevin Bond, Yorkshire Water (leaflet Natural Step). (www.naturalstep.org)

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development adopted the concept of eco-efficiency as a main contribution by the business community to sustainable development. So far, efficiency improvements usually stay well below the growth rates of production and consumption. In absolute terms, energy and material use therefore goes on increasing in western consumer societies. Various approaches developed by members of the WBCSD can however be helpful in generating ideas on how to improve existing products or even how to switch from products to services. (www.wbcsd.ch)

Some interesting ideas and examples from the business sector have been presented by Claude Fussler in ‘Driving Eco-Innovation’ (Fussler, 1996). Also, European partners for the Environment (EPE) as a public-private alliance for sustainable development can be a source of interesting information (www.epe.be). In general, the business community seems to be more sensitive than in the past to the appeal by the general public and environmental and social NGOs to produce in a socially and environmentally responsible way. It nevertheless needs to be said that still only a fraction of businesses have really started to address these issues in practical and commercial terms.

At the product level, LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) and various related methods have been or are being developed which are usually emission oriented but also include accounts of (part of) the resources used (ISO-14040, 14041 etc.) (www.iso14000.com). Social aspects are not included, except in a Danish LCA variant which classifies the environmental and social aspects of the production of a product (UMIP; English: MECO)). The UMIP or MECO method classifies the resource consumption and environmental pollution of Material Use, Energy Use, Chemicals Use and Other (esp. labour conditions) ( Wenzel et al, 1997).

Friends of the Earth developed the concept of fair shares of environmental space. This approach is presented in more depth below as it forms the basis of the Ecospace Audit which was developed in the course of this project. More information can be found at www.xs4all.nl/~foeint. Several useful reference publications are Sharing the World, Towards Sustainable Europe, and the Action Plan Sustainable Netherlands.

1.2 Fair shares in environmental space

Global and regional ecological limits are already being exceeded. Developed countries are the main culprits. Their one billion inhabitants - about 20% of the world population - use 80% of the fossil fuels, metals, wood, minerals, and other resources that are extracted every year.

Despite increasing the efficiency with which we use these resources, our total consumption of them is still growing. In a few cases, pollution has been cut in some developed countries. But pollution and landscape destruction are growing in the countries where our resources are extracted or produced.

Many developing countries are on course to realise a level of affluence similar to that of the USA and Europe. China, with its 1 billion inhabitants, is a case in point. Economic growth in China has been around 10% per year since 1980. It is expected that car ownership in China will reach today’s UK level by 2020. This will mean 400 million more cars. With conventional technology, this would almost double global iron ore consumption, as well as massively increasing landscape destruction, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

If the developing countries come to consume in the same wasteful manner as the developed countries, global resource use will increase eight-fold while the population only doubles. If the developing countries remain poor - an undesirable prospect - the same doubling of world population would just add a quarter to global resource consumption. As a result, the level of resource use per capita is crucial in determining whether a consumption pattern is sustainable.

The concept of fair shares in environmental space therefore embodies both the environmental and social dimension of sustainable development. The economic dimension of sustainable development is discussed in the last paragraph of this chapter.

In practical terms ‘environmental space’ is the total amount of energy, non-renewable resources, agricultural land and forests that we can use without causing irreversible environmental damage or depriving future generations of the resources they will need. The amount of environmental space is limited. We have only one Earth. For example, there is a limit to the area of land we can sustainably put into agricultural production, while the threat of climate change limits our fossil energy use, and there is only so much timber we can fell each year without depleting our forests.

Sustainability requires social as well as environmental balance. The principle of equity and social justice is reflected in the calculation of ‘fair shares in environmental space’. These are worked out by dividing the sustainable global availability of energy and resources by the expected world population for a given target year. In these terms, achieving sustainability means that each country consumes more or less the same amount of natural resources relative to its population size.

Working towards fair shares in environmental space means that Europe and the other developed countries will have to make big cuts in their use of environmental space to create room for development for the developing countries. Some examples of the difference between a fair share of environmental space for Europe and present use of resources, as calculated by the German Wuppertal Institute, are presented below.

Table 1
Environmental space, actual use and proposed targets for 2010 for the European Union (Spangenberg, 1995)

Look here!

The fair share in environmental space for fossil energy is calculated on the basis of the existing consensus in the official commission on climate change of the United Nations. The fair share for energy is 1.1 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year (in the case of high population growth to 10 billion people in 2050). Or 1.7 tons in the case of low population growth to 7 billion people. Average emissions in Europe are over 7 tons. Germany, for example, is emitting 12 tons of carbon dioxide per capita per year. Nuclear power is not a sustainable alternative, because of the risks and cost of nuclear waste management.

The shares for other non-renewable resources are based on the assumption that to avoid unsustainable waste, pollution and landscape destruction, extraction of metals and minerals has to be reduced by around 50% on a global scale, while those for renewable resources reflect sustainable harvesting.

Although these reduction targets are approximations, they do give a clear and realistic indication of the direction, speed and order of magnitude of change needed in the use of resources by industrialised countries.

The concept of fair shares in environmental space has been welcomed as innovative and important for future environmental policies. The Danish Parliament decided that the concept of fair shares in environmental space should be used for the development of sustainability policies. The recently published Danish energy scenario suggests a target of 1.2 tons of carbon dioxide per capita in the year 2100. The Austrian government agreed to a factor 10 dematerialisation in its National Environmental Policy Plan.

1.3 The economic dimension of sustainable development

A significant reduction of resource input is possible, even without decreasing material wealth. Reducing resource extraction is not the same as reducing end use. We can aim to fulfil human needs directly while minimising the use of natural resources. Patterns of production and consumption can be changed in combination with existing and feasible technological improvements. Then it is possible to cut resource use by a factor of 10 or more and increase the quality of life too.

To achieve a fair sharing of the limited environmental space we need a radical change in the design of products and processes. Only then we can realise a closed-loop economy which can provide meaningful goods to 10 billion consumers in the next century without overburdening ecosystems. Manufacturers must remain responsible for their products, for example by leasing them rather than selling, and taking responsibility for repair or reuse.

As Claude Fussler (Vice President of Ventures and Environment Health & Safety at DOW Europe) says: "Businesses that take this course of innovation, and reduce environmental impact while bringing more quality to life, will create value for their shareholders. They will become more competitive with a motivating, creative environment for their workers. They will gain new markets."

The Ecospace Audit developed in this project aims to lend companies a helping hand in developing their own answers and contribution to the challenge of sustainable production and consumption.

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