Danske husholdningers miljøbelastning
Summary and conclusions
Background and purpose
Investigation method
Main results of the project
Result of the pilot calculation
The
consumption statistics as a basis for continuous updating?
New environmental data needed
What is required for continuous updating?
Differences between
various household types
Meat, car and residence – these sources are still the main contributors to pollution from Danish households. As regards the load on the environment from chemical household products the use of textile detergents still has the most serious environmental impact. The pilot calculation of an update based on the consumption statistics from the Statistics Denmark indicates that furniture and entertainment electronics are increasingly important.
In the future the consumption statistics may form the basis for estimation of the development in various environmental impacts by households. The result will be most correct within thefood sector, whereas in other fields more detailed statistics for the use of individual products is required. The data basis for the applied lifecycle-based calculation method must be continuously updated, so that the results reflect the actual changes in the resource and environmental impacts.
Background and purpose
The overall purpose of this project is to develop a method for continuous updating of the previously prepared survey project " Environmental impact of the family's activities", using as a starting pointStatistics Denmark’s consumption statistics, and evaluating which other updates are relevant.
The project is to follow-up the project "Environmental impact of the family's activities" carried out in 1996 on the basis of the National Consumer Agency's standard budget for 1994. Since its preparation the project has been an important basis for setting the National Consumer Agency's priorities relating to advice to consumers on environmental matters (which in January 2000 was taken over by the Consumers' Information Service (Forbrugerinformationen). The objective of continuous updating is to be able to adadjust the advice given, in step with changes in the consumption patterns of Danish households .
An important precondition of "Environmental Impact of the Family's Activities" was that it was prepared on the basis of the National Consumer Agency's standard budget for private households. This budget was prepared on a normative basis, that is to say that it is a theoretical model with built-in preconditions that do not necessarily represent an average consumption. The consumption statistics on the other hand are based on a representative calculation of the actual consumption in various household types.
This project is a pre-project that, by preparation of a calculation example on the basis of the consumption statistics from Statistics Denmark estimates the type and amount of supplementary data required to complete a continuous survey of the environmental impact by the Danish households. The calculation example is thus based on a series of data of considerably varying accuracy. Because of the uncertainty of the data, the result is consequently to be considered with considerable reservations.
Investigation method
The method used to prepare the calculation example corresponds to "The Family's Environmental Impact" with a few, but essential modifications. A recalculation of the results of "The Family's Environmental Impact" was made to enable comparison of the two investigations. The method of calculation and the comparison of the two investigations are thoroughly described in the project report. Figure 1.1 shows the individual steps of the calculation method.
Figure 1.1
shows the individual steps of the applied calculation method
For this project DHI - Water and Environment carried out an updating of the environmental impact by chemical household products, and the result is included in the report.
In addition to the calculation example carried out by COWI A/S, I/S ØkoAnalyse has prepared an overview of investigations of the environmental behaviour of Danish households. As regards the most important activities in Danish households it has also been assessed whether documentation from foreign investigations would be relevant.
Main results of the project
The results of the project are described in two parts:
The first part is the result of the pilot calculation, based on
 | the consumption of goods in Danish households derived from the consumption statistics |
| new data for the application of electricity for various activities |
| new environmental data for electricity and heating. |
But otherwise based on the data applied in "The Family's Environmental Impact" report.
The second part is an assessment of
| whether the consumption statistics are applicable as the basis for a continuous updating |
| what other data would need updating in order to obtain an exhaustive picture of the environmental impact by Danish households. |
Result of the pilot calculation
For a short characterisation of the typical environmental impact by Danish households, "meat, car and residence" ("bøf, bil og bolig" in Danish) are still in focus. And when we look upon chemical household products, the use of textile detergents has the most serious environmental impact. This is the overall result of the present updating, which is completely in line with the previously performed survey of the Family's environmental impact (National Consumer Agency, 1996). It appears, though, that furnishing the residence with furniture and entertainment electronics has gained increasing environmental importance. This is due to a much larger consumption of these activities than foreseen in "The Family's Environmental Impact".
The two investigations are, however, not quite comparable, and a detailed analysis of the "development" during the five years between the investigations is not possible. The comparison points out the essential differences between the investigations, which are primarily due to changes in the applied consumption data. But the comparison also shows that changes in the applied environmental data have decisive importance for the result of the environmental calculation. For example, the new environmental data for sources of heat resulted in reduced resource and environmental impacts from heating in the calculation example - somewhat lower than in "The Family's Environmental Impact", even though the heating consumption in the residence is almost the same.
As regards the chemical household products the project shows that both the consumption and composition of the products have changed since the former evaluation. The use of textile detergents still has the most serious environmental impact. Generally the volume of consumption of all the products is considerably higher than in the former evaluation.
The consumption statistics as a basis for continuous updating?
The conclusion of the project is that a complete updating of the environmental impact from all activities in the Danish households would be very comprehensive. The project also shows that Statistics Denmark’s consumption statistics would not for all activities in private households be adequate as a basis for calculation of the development of the future environmental impact.
Compared to the previously applied standard budget, the consumption statistics cover far better within the foodsector, where the statistics include far more goods and provide a detailed picture of the food consumption of Danish households. Additionally, prices of representative goods in the food sector are available, which is a necessary precondition of the calculation method. Also, it is comparatively simple to procure the prices and the weight to fill in the missing data on representative goods.
For all activities involving other products than food the consumption statistics are, however, far less specific than in the previously applied standard budget. In fields like clothing, furniture and household chemicals many products are collected group-wise, or prices for representative goods to be used for recalculation to piece-weight are lacking. If these fields are to be updated continuously, a collection of prices and consumption of various specific products would be required. This work should be carried out in co-operation with the Statistics Denmark.
The last group of activities connected with the households is included in the consumption statistics as a total sum without representative goods. It is especially transport and maintenance of the residence. If these activities are to be included in a survey of the environmental impact by Danish households, this would require input from other types of surveys that are not updated continuously.
The consumption statistics do not contain data for distribution of electricity, water and heating consumption on the individual activities. For e.g. electricity consumption such data are only available for a few household types, e.g. households distributed according to the number of their members. Using the existing statistics it would not always be possible to distribute the consumption of electricity, water and heating on the activities of other types of households.
The last group of activities connected with the households is included in the consumption statistics as a total sum without representative goods. It is especially transport and maintenance of the residence. If these activities be included in an survey of the environmental impact by Danish households, this would require input from other types of surveys that are not updated continuously.
The consumption statistics do not contain data for distribution of electricity, water and heating consumption on the individual activities. For e.g. electricity consumption such data are only available for a few household types, e.g. households distributed according to the number of their members. Using the existing statistics it would not always be possible to distribute the consumption of electricity, water and heating on the activities of other types of households.
New environmental data needed
In order to provide an up-to-date picture of the environmental impact by individual products, updating of the material composition of the products, new environmental data for the production of the materials, and new data for energy processes and waste management are required.
The need for new information on the material composition of the products appeared i.a. during updating of chemical household products, in which considerable changes had been made since the latest investigation. For example, toilet detergents were among the products with the most serious environmental impact, but are now among the products with considerable lower impact.
It is also necessary to apply new environmental data for production of materials and energy processes. It has turned out that application of new electricity and heating data has resulted in considerable changes of the result. The speed of an updating of environmental data depends especially on the general development of the LCA data basis. Whereas electricity and heating data will probably be updated frequently, several years may pass between the issue of new data for the many production processes for materials.
Waste management is an important area, in which no updated data were applied in the pilot calculation. It would be necessary to update the data basis as regards the actual handling of waste, if the calculated required landfilling capacity is to be a useful measure for environmental impact. If for instance the waste treatment of a product is changed from deposit to recycling, it might result in both lower deposit requirements and increased resource consumption in spite of increasing consumption of the product. New data for waste management will be available in the course of 2002 as a result of other ongoing projects.
What is required for a continuous updating?
The Consumers' Information Service focuses on concrete advice on the choice of products on the basis of quality, price and environmental conditions. Consequently it is desirable that an updated calculation of the environmental impact by Danish households should be sufficiently specific to make it applicable as a basis for an evaluation of the environmental impact caused by different types of products and consumers choices. This would require specific consumption data, environmental data and possibly also investigations of the consumers' behaviour when choosing products and their consumption habits. Instead of updating all activities and goods consumption of a household, a specific field for the efforts should be chosen before each initiation of an updating. Thus, it would be possible to update continuously the necessary data basis of - among other things - the material composition of the products.
In the foodsector the consumption statistics would within one or two years together with new data from ongoing life-cycle projects be able to form the basis for a product-specific updating of data on food. In Sweden projects have been launched with the purpose of revealing the consumers' behaviour in connection with shopping and cooking of food in the household. That project might be the basis for concrete advice, even though supplementary investigations of the preferences of Danish consumers might be relevant.
In connection with furniture and entertainment electronics the updating would to a varying degree require supplementary data, partly on consumption of individual products, and partly on the material composition of the products. Furthermore, the availability of updated statistics concerning the stock of and the consumption at the application of for instance electricity-consuming devices would be a precondition. If this field were to be selected for special environmental action to be taken, it would be appropriate to co-operate with e.g. the Statictics Denmark concerning statistics of specific consumption of individual products.
The available knowledge on material consumption for the production of electronics will probably be further developed, when the new EU proposal for a directive on the environmental conditions of electronics comes into force in the years to come (EU, 2002). In the light of the increasing consumption a more thorough analysis of this field would be interesting. Additionally the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has in 2001 initiated more projects with the purpose of examining the consumers' knowledge of environmental conditions and their preferences in connection with the choice of electronics for their homes.
As regards the chemical household products the missing information on consumption is obtainable from various market analyses. Instead the resources could be used to follow the possible development of the composition of the individual chemical household products. Finally, an environmental assessment of the various alternative products would be relevant to provide the consumers with concrete possibilities of action.
In fields such as maintenance of residence and holiday transport the data basis is very insufficient, as the consumption statistics only state the amounts as large total items that are not directly connected to a specific consumption of goods. Thus it becomes difficult to connect information of material and energy consumption to these two fields, unless individual investigations are made. An investigation of the consumers' background for choice of holiday travels would also be required. An updating of these fields is thus not obvious, but would require considerable efforts.
Differences between various household types
One element of the project was to investigate the need and the possibility of demonstrating differences in the environmental impact by various household types.
Summing up it turned out that the statistical consumption data provide a better basis for identification of the typical household types and the variation of the consumption. But the consumption statistics do not provide information as to how the consumption of electricity, water, heating and transport are distributed on the individual activities in various types and sizes of households. The availability of such data would be a precondition for revealing a true picture of the environmental impact by various household types.
The differences between various household sizes seem to follow the tendency to be immediately expected: the higher the consumption per person, the smaller the household. At future updates it would consequently be reasonable to only present data from some selected households, and especially to focus the data collection on fields with significant impacts, and on the differences of various household types.
As an example the calculation shows that single households use communal laundries more often than family households, and therefore consumer advice on environmental considerations relating to washing of clothes must have different starting points. A calculation including several types of households might thus be relevant to target the advice to the consumers to to various types of households.