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Intensified Product-orientated Environmental Initiative
4 The products
4.1 Introduction4.2 Products covered by the product initiative
4.3 Environmental properties of products in a life-cycle perspective
4.4 Evaluating environmental properties of products
4.5 The potential of environmental improvements of products
4.6 Environmental properties are not absolutely all
4.1 Introduction
Based on the environmental properties of products, an analysis is presented below of framework and conditions for the development and marketing of, and the demand for, less environmentally degrading products.The consumption of products in Denmark has grown enormously during the past 20-30 years, and with it also the quantity of resources, chemical substances and other items used in the production and use of products.
Conclusions about the products
The analysis of the products resulted i.a. in the below list of conclusions:
 | A large number of and among themselves very different products are involved. |
| The environmental problems can be linked to all parts of the life-cycle of these products. |
| Tools for determining the life-cycle impact of the products are almost ready but there is a lack of smallholder models. |
| Given the number of products, there is a need to develop broad-based instruments targeted at product areas, types of environmental properties, etc. |
| Identification work needs to be continued on the product, substance and material areas with the greatest need and potential for a positive outcome of initiatives. |
| A much extended collection and quality assurance of data on the environmental properties of the products is generally needed. |
| There is a need for development of tools for identifying alternative, less environmentally degrading solutions in the development work. |
| It must be possible to take into account various product characteristics besides their environmental properties - including price, functionality, working environment properties, aesthetic qualities, etc. |
The analysis in this chapter is based on experience gained in the environmental administrations, at companies and in the research and consultancy area over the past 5-10 years, during which the environmental properties of the products have been investigated.
Chapter structure
First, the chapter contains a description of the products covered by the initiative.
The implications of the environmental impact of a product are then reviewed
from a life-cycle perspective, together with ways of evaluating this impact. A
number of examples illustrate how know-how on the environmental properties of
products should be generated and used by the relevant stakeholders, as well as
they illustrate the environmental improvements that product initiatives may
entail. Finally, some deliberations are presented on the competitive features
of environmentally improved products.
4.2 Products covered by the product initiative
Focus on all productsAs a basic principle, the product-orientated environmental initiative should be targeted at all products manufactured and consumed in Denmark. In an open economy with extensive imports and exports of goods and services, this means that the spotlight must be on products made in Denmark, of which some are exported, as well as on products that are imported and used in Denmark.
Basically, the product initiative is targeted at physical products causing major environmental impact from a life-cycle perspective. Services are also included if they entail major consumption of physical products of importance to the environment. Cleaning and transport, for instance, are services relevant to the product initiative while marriage counselling is not. Given their turnover volume and environmental impact, foods are also essential to the product initiative while works of art will only be so as an exception.
Furthermore, the products include both products used by the end user, the so-called end products, and semimanufactures used in their production.
A huge number of products
The number of products on the Danish market is vast. Foreign affairs statistics
record trade in approx. 15,000 different product groups. Each of these
comprises a great many different articles. To these must be added the services.
This diversity of products is emphasised by the fact that the product
initiative is directed not only at products existing on the market today, but,
in particular, at the products that will be developed and marketed in future
years.
Short product life
The commercial life of new products has become increasingly shorter in recent
years, and one generation of products is superseding the next at an ever
increasing rate. This is positive in the sense that they enable new, less
environmentally degrading products to penetrate the market more quickly but it
increases the complexity of the product field at which any product initiative
should be aimed.
Amid this multiplicity of products, initiatives must, as mentioned, be directed at those product groups causing the heaviest impact on the environment, and where such initiatives have a reasonable chance of bearing fruit. The possible success of such initiatives depends, i.a., on the market on which the products are traded, and on the stakeholders and instruments that can be activated in order to change the environmental impact of the products.
4.3 Environmental properties of products in a life-cycle perspective
The influence of the products on the environment depends on the environmental properties of the individual product and on the size of consumption. Environmental properties are comprised by the overall environmental impact associated with the entire life-cycle of the product (see Box 4.1). These properties can be mapped by use of a so-called life-cycle assessment (LCA).The life-cycle perspective
There can be great differences in the significance of the various stages of the
life-cycle of a product for the overall environmental impact of that product.
Therefore, in the life-cycle perspective, it is different stakeholders that can
make special efforts to improve the various environmental properties of the
product.
For many products, it will be the choice of design in particular that determines a number of the environmental properties of the product - this applies, for example, to raw materials, production processes, function mechanisms, consumption during the utilisation phase and the scope for separating or stripping the products after use. In his or her choice of consumption and the subsequent use and disposal of the product, the consumer also has a decisive influence on the overall impact during the product life-cycle.
Need for extensive insight
As appears from the box, the environmental properties of a product are a highly
complex parameter. Precise determination of the environmental properties of a
product requires extensive insight - both all-round specialist insight and
a knowledge of the life-cycle conditions of the specific product. Parts of this
knowledge will normally be spread over different stakeholders involved in the
product life-cycle. One of the challenges facing product-orientated
environmental initiatives is to make that knowledge available in all relevant
contexts.
Box 4.1
Environmental properties in a life-cycle perspective
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Much simplified, the environmental impact of products - goods and services
alike - throughout their life-cycle is divided into the following stages:
Energy and raw material extraction
Production
Distribution
Use
Disposal
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Lack of life-cycle assessment data
In many cases, the source data for LCAs are generally characterised by substantial uncertainties and deficiencies. This is especially true of information about the effects that can be caused by the use and spread of chemical substances. It is equally true of information on the environmental impact of the many different processes, raw materials and materials used in the manufacture, use and disposal of products. There are also problems in operationalising an important area of action such as the preservation of biodiversity. The inventory of environmental properties of products is one of the initial elements of LCAs, which are treated in the next section.
4.4 Evaluating environmental properties of products
The vast majority of products can cause several different environmental problems. For this reason, it is rarely possible to immediately identify the - in overall terms - most important areas of action. That applies whether one is a manufacturer, dealer, authority, or a professional or private consumer. In addition to these data, there is thus a need for usable methods of comparison as well.Methods for both professionals and others
Professionals must have both methods and tools as those described below, and tools need to be developed that can help make life-cycle considerations possible on the basis of
the information available. This is exemplified at the end of this section.
Environmental assessment of products from cradle to grave started on a small scale, 25-30 years ago. Since the early 1990s, there has been an increasing focus on developing the methodological foundation in the field. The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) has been very active in this field throughout this period but still needs to operationalise its underlying methods for a number of the stages in their code of practice for LCAs.
ISO standard for LCAs
Since 1993, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has been
developing standards for methods in this field. Before long, an ISO framework
standard for LCA will probably be adopted, stipulating what an LCA must include
in general terms (ISO 14040). Under this framework standard, three more
detailed standards will be established for the ongoing parts of an LCA. Here,
the inventory is equivalent to a life-cycle assessments, and the environmental
assessment includes a number of activities enabling the different potential
environmental properties of products to be balanced against each other
following a fixed pattern.
| Goal definition/scope and inventory analysis (ISO 14041)
| Impact assessment (ISO 14042)
| Improvement assessment (ISO 14043)
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The elaboration of ISO 14041 is currently being finalised and work on ISO 14043 is well under way. The drafting work on the impact assessment standard (ISO 14042) includes two difficult stages with regard to the last part of the impact assessment, on which no clarification has yet been obtained. One is the question of "normalisation" - i.e. whether, and if so how, estimated contributions to environmental effects and resource consumption should be related to overall impact and consumption. The other is the question of "weighting" - i.e. how the contributions to each of the effects and consumptions of individual resources are weighted relative to one another.
The outcome will probably be that the impact assessment standard leaves the user with a number of choices by providing instructions on different possible approaches to these steps.
ISO eco-labelling standard
ISO is also in the process of developing eco-labelling standards (the 14020
series). This will include a framework standard for eco-labelling and three
underlying standards.
| Single-criterion labels, relating to a single aspect only, and multi-criteria labels like the EU eco-label.
| Self-declaration of environmental properties.
| Environmental product declarations with verification.
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In connection with the standards for LCAs, discussions particularly revolve around the question of whether or not to include the total life-cycle of products and the question of how to evaluate the estimated effects in relation to one another. At the same time, this is of great importance to the potential of the standards. With regard to the eco-labelling standards, there are discussions as to who should be represented and what degree of consensus should be achieved in the laying-down of criteria.
EDIP - a Danish environmental assessment method
A current Danish example of an environmental assessment method for products has
been developed in connection with the large EDIP [1]
The EDIP method stipulates that environmental properties and resource consumption must be normalised so that they can be expressed in percentages of the annual impact from an average person - either in Denmark, if a local or regional effect is considered, or world-wide, if the effect is global.
The following weighting of the various environmental problems is based on Danish - politically adopted - objectives for reducing various kinds of environmental impact. In the case of non-renewable resources, the weighting is based on the known supply horizon.
The EDIP method forms part of an package tool which also includes guidelines on environmentally sound design, a database and a PC program that will be available in 1997. The package tool ensures that environmental considerations are included in the design of products. The tool has been developed in relation to - and has so far been applied to - five different products within the field of electromechanics. But the method and the database may also be used for environmental assessments of products in other contexts and for other purposes.
Knowledge of the environmental properties of products is relevant to all stakeholders involved throughout the product life-cycle. If this knowledge is not generated and disseminated, there is no basis on which to act. This topic is examined below. Here, it will be sufficient merely to present a number of examples of cases in which evaluations of the environmental properties of products are relevant to different stakeholders and examples of the knowledge that we in Denmark have in the field today.
In not nearly all cases, the use of such a relatively complicated environmental assessment method such as the EDIP method will be a feasible prospect though it will usually be possible to base the product evaluations on the same principles or on parts of the method.
Knowledge of products' environmental properties
Box 4.2
Generating and applying knowledge on the environmental properties of products
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Purpose and stakeholder
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Examples of generating and applying knowledge on the environmental properties of products
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The involvement of the authorities in designating environmentally significant
product areas.
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The involvement of the authorities in designating less environmentally degrading
products or the most significant environmental properties of products.
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The development of the companies of less environmentally degrading products.
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| Promotion of the demand for less environmentally degrading products and helping to identify important environmental properties. |
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Promotion of supply of less environmentally degrading goods from the retail and wholesale
trades.
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Main products from an energy and resource angle
On the basis of energy consumption and resource losses, an examination of industrial products in Denmark allocates top priority to products within the sectors of transport, agriculture and food, construction and textiles when the products are considered throughout their entire life cycle /4/. What now needs to be investigated is whether the priority-setting method employed can be expanded to include the content of the products of environmentally or health hazardous chemical substances.
The environmental impact of the family in a life-cycle perspective
Similarly, a survey of the environmental impact of a family's activities points out meals,
transportation and residential heating as the most environmentally significant
activities /5/. Each activity includes several product groups and resource
consumption.
Public consumption
Public-sector consumption of products has been surveyed in various reports /6/. The purpose has been designate to product groups in which public procurement constitutes a substantial part of the market.
4.5 The potential of environmental improvements of products
No sense in specific goalsThere are enormous variations in the dimensions of the relative or absolute environmental improvement that has been achieved through the current environmentally improved products familiar to us. Nor is there any sense in trying to draw up a specific goal for environmental improvements of products on the Danish market. The products vary far too much for that, and our knowledge of both the technical and the economic conditions needed to reduce the environmental impact of the products is much too insufficient.
Reductions in energy and resource consumption and in emissions of xenobiotics can be achieved by economising and using known or adapted technologies. Extra insulation on refrigerators or electronic control of the energy or water consumed by products are examples of this.
Technological leaps often needed
More radical changes in energy and resource consumption will often require actual
leaps in technology, solving a task or fulfilling a need in an entirely new
way. The use of information technology, semiconductor technology or enzymes in
new contexts exemplifies this.
When the consumption of environmentally or health hazardous substances is concerned, there is no immediately visible limit to the improvements that are possible. Even today, many substances may be replaced by other environmentally acceptable substances or functions. Nor is there any reason to believe that such possibilities will be exhausted for the time being.
Tools cannot suggest alternatives
There are only a few tools today that can help the designer by indicating alternative
solutions that are better for the environment. The EDIP method can compare
solutions but cannot suggest alternatives. The Rentek database /7/ and the
Danish EPA's reference lists for cleaner technology are examples of aids for
identifying cleaner technology alternatives in the manufacturing phase. SUBTEC
/8/ is a database tool for hazard assessment of products and for solvent
substitution. Generally, though, there can be said to be a great need for
developing design aids capable of actively suggesting alternative less
environmentally degrading solutions.
4.6 Environmental properties are not absolutely all
Products are used for fulfilling a function or a particular need. Any initiative geared towards a product or product group must be based on the precondition that the need to be fulfilled can be fulfilled in a way that is environmentally and socially more ideal.There will be different understandings of the function of a product or the alternative ways in which a need can be satisfied. As a rule, the manufacturer of a product will look at changes within his product field while a private consumer has far more wide-sweeping possibilities of choosing between basically different ways of fulfilling, e.g., an entertainment function.
Function and quality must be preserved when improving environmental properties
An environmentally improved fulfilment of a given need presupposes that the need
is still fulfilled satisfactorily while reducing the environmental impact.
This is also a logical prerequisite if products are to be able to compete on a market on which products are bought primarily to fulfil a need, and, only secondarily, other factors such as environmental and working environment properties will be examined.
It is important, then, for product initiatives to contribute to the development of a practice in which all relevant stakeholders in all relevant decision-making situations simultaneously take into account:
| the environmental properties of the products
| the quality of the products, including functionality
| the competitiveness of the products (price)
| the importance of the products for the working environment
| the importance of the products for other social considerations.
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