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Handbook on environmental assessment of products

6. Complete the environmental assessment

You have now carried out your environmental assessment and obtained a result which is to be compared against the goal of the assessment and the preconditions it was based on.

If the goal, preconditions, and result match up, the actual environmental assessment is complete. We recommend that you let someone else review your environmental assessment for quality-assurance purposes before you present it to a wider audience.

If the assessment is for internal use only (e.g. for product development or prioritisation of environmental efforts), you can simply let a colleague with knowledge of environmental matters read your assessment.

If, however, your environmental assessment will be used for external purposes (marketing, environmental documentation aimed at customers or authorities), you should observe the instructions in ISO 14040 and use an external expert on LCAs. This expert is to document that your assessment has been carried out in accordance with all current requirements on life-cycle assessments.

6.1 Instructions on reporting

When reporting your work, you will often be expected to include everything and to keep your account brief and clear. This can be very difficult. The following provides some specific recommendations which you may find useful.

Basically, it is important that those reading your report can see what you have done. This is why you need to include everything. Start by collecting all information about basic data and calculations in one or more appendices. Explanatory texts would be helpful.

It should be possible to read the actual report without having to refer to the appendices all the time. That is why you need to place the most important data, results, and graphs (if any) in the report while referring to the relevant basic figures in the appendices.

You should carefully describe all the assumptions and omissions you have made during your work. Review them critically before you describe your results.

In order to be prepared to answer "critical" questions, as well as to be able to recall the basis for your results later, it is important that you have extensive documentation of your work. Include explanations for your choices.

Bear the reader in mind as you write your report. If it is to be used internally, it will probably not necessary to include detailed accounts of your production conditions. If, however, your report will be read by customers or authorities, you will often have to provide this information as well.

If you are unsure about how to prepare your report, you can use the suggestions given in section 6.2.

6.2 Suggested contents of your report

In the following, we present some recommendations on what your report should include. The suggestions take the form of items listed in a table of contents.

The proposed table of contents is divided into three main areas: the MECO chart, PC modelling, and Chemical assessment. This makes it easy to identify the items which are relevant to your presentation, depending on the steps included in your environmental assessment.

In your assessment, you may have used background data which cannot, for one reason or another, be published. We recommend that you collect such information in an appendix which can easily be removed from the report if necessary.

6.2.1 Reporting the MECO chart

If you have carried out your environmental assessment of one or more products by means of chapters 1 to 3 and the MECO chart, you can use the following outline for your report:

1.		Introduction
	Briefly describe the company and its main activities
2.		The goal of the environmental assessment
	List the questions asked as part of the goal definition, and state why you wish to find answers to these questions.
3.		Choosing the product and functional unit
	Describe the chosen product(s). You may want to present a "functional unit" chart as illustrated in example B1.4. If two products are being compared, it is important to point out the differences between them.
4.		Preconditions
		4.1 Scope definition
	What issues have not been included? Examples would be transport and production of certain ancillary materials.
		4.2 Assumptions/omissions
	List the areas where it has been necessary to apply assumptions or where it has not been possible to obtain data.
		4.3 Data quality
5.		Describe the life-cycle of the product(s)
	Describe the five phases of the product life-cycle. Diagrams can be helpful. You should clearly describe the significant issues included in each phase, as well as what has been omitted.
6.		Presenting the MECO chart(s)
	Present the chart(s) and provide explanations for them.
7.		Interpreting the MECO chart(s)
	Here, the significant issues associated with your product should be pointed out. Also state why they are significant. If you are comparing several products, you should identify the differences and explain the causes. Comment on the results in relation to items 2, 3, 4 and 5.
8.		Suggestions for further efforts
	Describe the activities you plan to initiate on the basis of the results of the environmental assessment – e.g. changes to a product or a process.

Appendix A: Data

Appendix B: Calculations

6.2.2 Reporting PC modelling

If you have carried out your environmental assessment of one or more products by means of chapters 1 to 4, the MECO chart, and PC modelling, you can use the following report outline:

1.		Introduction
2.		The goal of the environmental assessment
3.		Choosing the product and functional unit
4		Preconditions
		4.1 Scope definition
		4.2 Assumptions/omissions
		4.3 Data quality
5.		Describe the life-cycle of the product(s)
6.		Presenting the MECO chart(s)
7.		Interpreting the MECO chart(s)
8.		Description of the modelled system(s)
	Describe how the modelled system has been established and where the data are from.
9.		Description of supplementary data
	Explain the origins of data which is not from the database
10.		Graphic presentation of the result
	Show the results in diagram form and use text to explain their content. The diagrams chosen must help clarify the causes of the most significant environmental impacts and resource consumptions.
11.		Discussion of the most significant environmental impacts
	Explain which environmental impacts and resource consumptions are the most important. Point out where they appear in the product life-cycle.
12.		Interpreting the results of the modelling
	Here, you should point out the significant issues associated with your product. State why these issues are important. If you are comparing several products, you should point out any differences and explain the reasons behind them. Comment on the results in relation to items 2-5 and 8-11.
13.		Suggestions for further efforts
	Describe the activities you plan to initiate on the basis of the results of the environmental assessment. You may, for example, wish to make changes to a product or a process, or plan an environmental declaration.

Appendix A:		Data
	Used for the MECO chart
	Used for the PC modelling
Appendix B:		Calculations made with the PC tool

If you have obtained data on materials or processes from experts and you have used results based on this information as data in your PC model, you should include a note to this effect as part of Appendix A.

If you have chosen to carry out a chemical assessment and have subsequently gone on to carry out modelling by means of the PC tool, you can still use the outline presented above: simply add a description of the chemical assessment under item 9. You should include basic data for the chemical assessment – in the form of data from literature - as well as the assessment itself in a separate appendix.

6.2.3 Reporting the chemical assessment

If you have carried out your environmental assessment of one or more products by preparing a MECO chart and carrying out a chemical assessment in accordance with chapters 1-3 and 5, the following report outline can be used:

1.		Introduction
2.		The goal of the environmental assessment
3.		Choosing the product and functional unit
4		Preconditions
		4.1 Scope definition
		4.2 Assumptions/omissions
		4.3 Data quality
5.		Describe the life-cycle of the product(s)
6.		Presenting the MECO chart(s)
7.		Interpreting the MECO chart(s)
8.		Description of the chemical substances being assessed
	Describe which chemical substances have been selected for further assessment – and why.
9.		Chemical assessment
	Here, you should describe the preconditions, data quality, and methods used in the chemical assessment as well as the results. As the assessment will often have been carried out by an expert, we recommend that it is reproduced in full. Alternatively, you can prepare a short summary and include the full assessment as an appendix.
10.		Interpretation of the chemical assessment
	This is where you point out the significant parts of the assessment. Explain why they are important. The results of the chemical assessment must be compared with the results from the MECO chart.
11.		Suggestions for further efforts
	Describe the activities you plan to initiate on the basis of the results of the environmental assessment. You may, for example, wish to substitute one substance for another, make changes to a process, or prepare an application for permission to use an eco-label.

Appendix A:		Data
	Data used for the MECO chart
Appendix B:		Chemical assessment – substance data from literature and assessments

6.3 Using the results in actual practice

You will often need to present the results of your environmental assessment very briefly. For example, you may wish to present the results at an internal meeting or as a brief text in a sales leaflet or data sheet aimed at customers.

Take the report you prepared in accordance with the instructions in section 6.2 as your point of departure. When making your brief account, focus on the following:

	The goal of the environmental assessment
	The preconditions
	The conclusions that can be drawn from your assessment

It is always important to explain the objective of the environmental assessment – why was it carried out? This has an impact on the results.

Make sure that you take into account any data uncertainties, missing data, and other omissions when comparing two or more product systems.

A drawing of the product system and an illustration of selected results can be a good way to present selected, general results.

You can choose to present your MECO chart in a more easy-to-read format by including only the most significant contributions to environmental impacts. In such cases, you should always remember to specify that the chart in question is an excerpt only.

When presenting selected environmental impacts addressed by means of the PC tool, you should remember to state why you have chosen the relevant impacts, and which conclusions you have drawn.

It can be very difficult to make a brief presentation of a chemical assessment. Choose the most significant chemical(s) and present the environmental impacts they entail.

Finally, you can also choose to describe the improvements carried out at your company on the basis of your environmental assessment or chemical assessment. Examples of such improvements would be waste separation, reduced materials consumption, substitution of chemicals, etc.

6.4 What’s next?

The goal of the environmental assessment you have just completed reflects the reasons why you and your company decided to carry out the task in the first place. The environmental assessment represents a good beginning for product-oriented environmental efforts.

You and your company have now learnt your first lessons. Hopefully, you will have obtained enough experience to be able to carry out your next environmental assessment in an even better, easier, and more efficient manner.

In the years to come, more and more companies will face increasing requirements for environmental documentation of their products –e.g. environmental declarations – as elements of an environmental management system or as a tool for assigning priorities to internal environmental initiatives.

Use the lessons learnt. Look at the suggestions for use of environmental assessments listed in part A, chapter 3. If you and your company wish to be cutting-edge in environmental terms, it is important that you adopt a life-cycle perspective – in more ways than one.

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