Summary and Conclusions, Miljøstyrelsen

Transport consumption in product lifecycles

Summary and Conclusions

State-of-the-art knowledge in the traditional transport sector is combined with state-of-the-art knowledge within life cycle assessment (LCA) in order to obtain the optimum method of assessing product consumption of transport and its subsequent environmental impacts. The project has revealed that a number of important parameters lack both general method development and LCA development, and a proposal has been submitted on how intervention in development work should proceed in future. In addition, there is great need to update LCA data.

Background and objective

Life cycle based product development is a relatively new discipline and until now attention has only to very limited extent been focused on the transporting of a product, as the environmental impact from this - in comparison to the collective environmental impact from products with "long" life cycles - typically is of less significance. The time has come for the transport aspect to be considered when a product is developed, and for attention to be focused on the relationship between products, transportation and transport consumption in product life cycles.

The Danish EPA's interest in the project must be viewed in the light of the Agency's work in environmental management and methods of influencing demand for transport services. Ultimately, it is important to reveal the environmental impacts of transport to those stakeholders making the real decisions of significance when it comes to transport impact on the environment. In addition, the project must be viewed in connection with the Goods Transport Panel's choice of input area. The Danish EPA is primarily interested in product consumption of transport, throughout product life cycle, and it is of central importance whether the environmental impacts of transport are satisfactorily reflected using current LCA methods.

This can be summarised by 3 issues:

Are the emissions included representative of the effect types intended for assessment, and are there effect factors with which to assess the emissions?
Are there assessment methods for all the effect types that transport causes?
Is product life cycle appropriately restricted with regards to transport?

The study

This project combines state-of-the-art knowledge in the traditional transport sector with state-of-the-art knowledge within life cycle assessment (LCA) in order to obtain the optimum method of assessing product consumption of transport and the subsequent effects on the environment, as well as submitting proposals for future development work.

In the transport sector, work is being carried out on transportation's statistical development and on transport's direct environmental and social impacts, for example, emissions, noise pollution, health problems with regards smog and particles, etc. There is focus on the greenhouse effects of CO₂ emissions, although no weighted assessment of different environmental effects has been performed to compare their size. This work is being performed within LCA circles.

Transport sector has the TEMA model (Transport EMissions under Alternative assumptions), which calculates energy consumption and major emissions for relevant types of goods and passenger transport. But the model does not calculate the production of fuel and the mode of transportation (e.g. lorry) and cannot calculate the environmental impacts, just as LCA has the EDIP PC tool, which calculates and assesses the environmental effects of product life cycles, including transport. The EDIP PC tool only has the capacity to process a limited number of older transport types, and is not programmed with data on all emissions.

Relevant projects and reports from Denmark and abroad have been screened in order to supplement the project team's existing knowledge. Transport statistics have been studied, concentrating on goods transport in Denmark and the EU, and the transport's environmental impact has been calculated in addition to its development and characterisation for different product categories. On this basis, 3 products have been selected as being well suited for case study.

The project examines traditional emissions, "new" emissions and resource consumption, land use and barrier effects, etc. Then the data and methodology for the environmental assessment of transport has been examined. Traditionally widespread emissions and their effects are described along with other ("new") emissions and parameters. To conclude, life cycle screening has been performed using the EDIP PC tool on the 3 selected products with related product chains: a ham, a TV and a detached house.

Primary conclusions

The project has revealed that a number of important parameters lack both general method development and LCA method development. Furthermore, there is a great need to update LCA data. On the basis of the results of the project, as well as the concluding seminar, the following recommendations have been made.

General method

The following parameters require general method development before LCA method development can properly commence:

High priority
Particles, toxicity.
Lower priority

Barrier effects

Effects on animal and plant life.

LCA method

The following parameters should undergo LCA method development, including characterisation factors for the calculation of potential environmental effects. Some parameters involve effects not adequately addressed by LCA, and these also require developed normalisation and weighting factors:

High priority

Particles, toxicity

Noise

Land use

HC/VOC, in particular toxicity and location-specific conditions

Normalisation references and weighting factors, in particular toxicity

Death/injury in accidents, limiting.

Lower priority

NO_x, in particular location-specific conditions

SO₂, in particular location-specific conditions

Heavy metals

Dioxins

Effects on animal and plant life

Barrier effects

Indirect emissions and resource consumption, certain areas.

Updating LCA data

LCA data should be developed or updated for the following parameters:

High priority

Particles

HC/VOC

Heavy metals

Nois

Land use

Indirect emissions and resource consumption.

Lower priority

Barrier effects

Effects on animal and plant life.

Of course, the LCA method must be established before any updating can occur.

Besides the above data, there is a general need to update LCA data in the EDIP PC tool.

Project results

The relative environmental significance of transport

Calculations show that transport accounts for 25% of total energy consumption both in Denmark and the EU, measured as primary energy, that is to say the extraction and refining of fuels as well as losses from the production of electricity are included. To this figure add a consumption of around 20 % as a result of international shipping. For overland transport, air traffic and national shipping, goods transport comprises around 30%, whilst passenger transport accounts for around 70%. All together, goods transport comprises around 12% of total energy consumption in Denmark. As service transport comes under goods, then actual goods transport probably accounts for around 10% of total Danish energy consumption.

Method and data

A selection of the most important results concerning methods and data for the environmental assessment of transport is outlined in the chart below.

Particle toxicity	A provisional assessment of human toxicity from particles resulted in quite high levels, which indicates that particles should be an important area of focus. This is in keeping, for example, with the WHO "Charter on transport, environment and health", and the current debate on post-installation of particle filters. Further assessment of health damage from particles is needed as a basis for the calculation of LCA effect factors.
VOC toxicity	Further work on assessing negative health effects from VOC is needed as a basis for the calculation of LCA effect factors.
Metals toxicity	In future, it will also be important to include the effect potentials for human, Eco and persistent toxicity due to the heavy metal content of fuels, etc. as well as ship bottom painting. Emission data available on metals from internal combustion engines does not list in which form the metals are found, e.g. bound to particles as pure particles or in chemical compounds. This information is essential for a detailed toxicity assessment of metal emissions.
References for normalisation and weighting	References must be revised as, for example, particle toxicity, VOC, heavy metals and ship bottom painting toxicity do not form part of the existing references in the EDIP method.
Detailing and operationalisation of data	More detailed specification of particles, VOC and heavy metals in connection to technology (particle filters, turbo-loading, catalytic converters, etc.) in the form of tonnes/km is required with regards to effect assessment of different modes of transport. Included here should be the examination of dioxin emissions from internal combustion engines.
Indirect emissions and resource consumption	The indirect effects from fuel production, vehicle manufacturing, maintenance, road construction, etc. are important - fuel production in particular - and there is a need for an update. In future, data should comprise part of general transport data.
Location-specific conditions	NO_x and SO₂ cause acidification. Both effects are described in the basis for the EDIP method with the possibility of conducting environmental assessment. However, existing methodology currently does not allow, using assessments, to differentiate geographically where emissions occur. There is a great difference in how sensitive the effected areas are. For example, northern European forest areas are considerably more sensitive than chalk-rich areas in southern Europe or open marine areas. Therefore, it is not irrelevant whether a lorry drives in Denmark or in southern Europe, or whether a ship sails along coastal stretches or out at sea. Similar conditions exist concerning nutrient salt impacted by NO_x and for photochemical ozone formation from VOC. Location-specificity comprises part of the Danish EPA's method development project for LCA.
Noise	Noise comprises part of the Danish EPA's method development project for LCA. As yet there are no proposals for normalisation and weighting, such that noise pollution can be registered in person equivalents (PE), which will be the final result of the EDIP method.
Land use	There appears to be focus on animal and plant life in land use issues, where bio-diversity and the rarity of species are described. A Dutch model attempts to include this by calculating the percentage of change of the number of selected plants per km² per year by changing from one land use to another. The approach must be considered as a proposal rather than a completely developed method.
Death and injury	There is a need to clarify whether death and injury for accidents should be covered by LCA assessment, and if it is decided it should be, then data and assessment methods need to be found.

Case studies

In order to get a clear picture of how large a share transport constitutes for different products, life cycle screening has been performed using the EDIP PC tool on a ham, a TV and a detached house. Prior to the calculations, the EDIP PC tool was updated with the specific data required, yet as mentioned previously, quite a number of parameters have not been included. Therefore, the results must be considered with some reservation.

As around 3 kg of feed is used per kg of live porker, the material phase is very dominant for the ham. Transport is important with regards weighted resource consumption, toxicity and waste. With respect to weighted environmental effects, transport is of lesser significance. Measured by greenhouse effect, transport accounts for around 5% of the ham's total contribution to the greenhouse effect. As for the TV and the detached house, which both have a relatively long life cycle and associated energy consumption, transport accounts for 1-1.5% of their contribution to the greenhouse effect.