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Cleaner Technology Projects in Denmark 1996

The Environmental Impact of a Family’s Activities

The purpose of mapping out the impacts of a family’s activities is to create an environmental budget, which can be used as a tool for consumer organisations working with providing information on consumption and environment. This method report presents the data material, which was used in connection with the mapping out of the environmental impacts of a family’s activities and describes the basis of calculation, which was used in order to reach the results of the inquiry.

The mapping out of the environmental impacts of a family’s activities is described in a method report published by The Danish Environmental Protection Agency. The National Consumer Agency of Denmark published the results of the inquiry in 1996.

The project is based on consumer data from the National Consumer Agency. The basis for the calculations is the Agency’s budget for a role-model family consisting of two adults and two children. The calculation includes typical consumer data such as electricity, water and heating data. Moreover, a simplified life-cycle assessment of the environmental impacts of the role-model family’s use of 812 different products distributed by 22 different activities was carried out.

The result of each activity is presented as an environmental profile for the resource consumption and the emissions to the environment. Moreover, the results are divided into three sections: Production, use and disposal.

The applied model for simplified life-cycle assessments of a large number of products is presented in the method report. The fact that the assessment is simplified means that the environmental data consists of single processes for materials with typical process cycles. The resource consumption and the emissions to the external environment in the process of manufacture, surface treatment and the disposal of the products are calculated as additions which, based on typical single processes for the processing and the surface treatment of the material, are given to each product. In the definition of the additional processes, importance was also attached to limiting the number to only a few options. Additions for the disposal also cover the crediting of the materials which are included in the products and which are recycled to a wide extent.

The family’s consumption of resources and emissions to the external environment are stated in person equivalents. A person equivalent is the average resource consumption for a person in a year or the average emission of environmentally dangerous substances of one person in a year to the external environment.

The results of the analysis show that the family meals constitute a third of the total consumption of resources and emissions to the external environment. Car transportation and heating of rooms also constitute a third of the family’s resource consumption and emissions to the external environment.

The remaining third of the resource consumption and emissions to the external environment especially concerns the consumption of goods in spare-time occupations, clothing, hygiene, health care and cleaning.

All together the family’s total consumption of water, oil for heating, gasoline for transportation constitute more than half of the family’s consumption of resources and emissions to the external environment. The areas where environmental benefits could be gained are areas where the consumers have great influence on the size of the consumption. However, this requires a change in our daily consumption pattern in a number of areas.

As regards to the chemical household goods an inquiry into the impact on the water environment was made. The assessment is based on the role-model family’s use of goods and the eco-toxicological effects of the substances. Laundry detergents, hair care products, shower gel and lavatory washing products cause the most serious impacts.

The result report focuses on presenting the environmental impacts of the family’s activities. From the background material of the project it is possible to extract the environmental impacts from the 812 investigated products included in the family’s activities.

For the handling of the large amount of data, a database system in the PC programme Paradox was developed. The project’s data files can be required on discs by contacting The National Agency of Environmental Protection.

Author/ institution

Ole Dall and Jesper Toft, I/S ØkoAnalyse

This report is subsidised by the National Council for Recycling and Cleaner Production

ISSN no. 0908-9195
ISBN no. 87-7810-583-8

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