Ranking of Industrial Products

Preface

Purpose and results

This report describes the results of a project the purpose of which is ranking of all industrial products sold in Denmark on the basis of loss of resources and energy consumption related to these products.

This ranking is to be considered an initial, systematic attempt to identify the commodity groups (groups of industrial products) that can be assumed to be considerably harmful to the environment, and thus should be prioritised in the future efforts to introduce cleaner technology in Denmark.

It is stressed that this ranking is based on two simple criteria (loss of resources and energy consumption) and does not consider other kinds of environmental impact (e.g. emissions from productive activities), related to industrial products.

Consequently the ranking itself is not an explanation of the industrial products resulting in the most serious environmental impact, but simply an explanation of the ranking according to the selected criteria.

The selected criteria are however considered covering a significant part of the total environmental impact by industrial products. Thus the results of this project will form an important basis for prioritizing of the environmental measures to be taken as concerns the product - measures to be taken in conformity with the action plan of cleaner technology 1993-1997/1/ of the Danish Ministry of the Environment.

The preparation of this ranking of industrial products has required collection and estimation of a considerable amount of data on the material composition of industrial products, energy consumption in connection with production of materials and recycling of materials etc. These data are expected to be reusable in other connections and were therefore organised in a database, which was installed in the computer system of the Danish Environmental Protection Agency as part of this project.

Financing and accomplishment

The project was financed by the Council for recycling and less polluting technology. The project was accomplished by COWI A/S within the period of May to December 1993.

Steering group

The accomplishment of the project was supervised by a steering group with the following members:

Søren Kristoffersen Danish EPA (chairman)

Mariane Hounum Danish EPA

Pia Jellinggård Danish EPA

Peter Grau Danish EPA

Helle Petersen Danish EPA

Kurt Søndergård COWI

Henrik Kærgård COWI

Kristian B. Lauritsen COWI (substitute for H. Kærgård)

Erik Hansen COWI5