M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, From LCA to sustainability Michael Hauschild Division of Quantitative Sustainability Assessment, QSA Department of Management Engineering Technical University of Denmark

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, What is LCA and what does it tell us? What is the sustainability challenge? Roles in the transition From LCA to sustainability

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, The life cycle of a product

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, Fundamental strengths of Life cycle assessment The life cycle perspective helps identify and avoid problem- shifting along the value chain Considers all relevant types of impacts to address trade-offs between impacts Quantifies eco-efficiency (more with less) Life cycle assessment, LCA

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, Analysed system (life cycle) Inventory of environmental exchanges Environmental profile of solutions Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, Life cycle assessment supports -Finding the most eco-efficient solution (eco-design) -Identify environmental hot spots in the life cycle of the product or technology -Avoiding sub-optimizations in the development of more sustainable solutions -Communication about environmental impacts of products and solutions

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, Brundtland Commission: A sustainable development “...meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” But which needs? … and how are they met? Sustainability – meeting the needs

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, Sustainable consumption and production

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, The great acceleration Steffen et al., 2015a

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, Planetary boundaries Steffen et al. (2015)

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, The environmental sustainability challenge I is the environmental impact P or Pop is the global population A is the Affluence, the material standard of living, e.g. T is the Technology factor – environmental impact per created value:. T is the inverse eco-efficiency Ehrlich and Holdren (1971) Commoner (1972) Graedel and Allenby (1995)

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, The environmental sustainability challenge The global population may level off around 11 billion Material standard of living will grow strongly in newly industrialised countries (Asia, South America) The environmental impact already exceeds sustainable levels in many areas So what is the challenge?

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, Factor 4, 10 or 20 The technology factor,, – the impact caused by our creation of wealth and economic value must decrease 4-20 times in order to counterbalance the expected growth in population and material standard of living achieve the needed reduction in the environmental impact …i.e. be environmentally sustainable - a huge challenge to eco-efficiency!

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, Development in efficiency Franceschini 2015 The example of lighting technology Edison lamp Tungsten filament LED lamps Compact fluorescent tube Fluorescent tube Candle Oil lamp

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, Development in consumption “Over the past three centuries, and even now, the world spends about 0.72% of its GDP on light and 0.54% of its GDP on the consumption of energy associated with light” Tsao et al., 2010 Ausubel and Marchetti, 1997 Consumption of light Ability to purchase light

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, The rebound effect Consumption (Affluence) and efficiency (Technology factor) are not always independent In some cases an increase in efficiency can drive an increase in consumption meaning that remains constant or even grows, leading to higher impact

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, From LCA to sustainability Companies and consumers: We must ensure eco-efficiency (more with less) – do the things right But we must also ensure effectiveness towards sustainable consumption and production – do the right things Governments (and citizens): Level playing field for companies Stable and ambitious goals Enforce science-based targets Transparent markets Consumers: Consume eco-efficient products in an eco-effective way

M. Hauschild Responsible sourcing DTU, Commoner B (1972) The environmental cost of economic growth. In Ridker RG (ed.) Population, Resources and the Environment, pp U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC. Ehrlich P, Holdren J (1971) Impact of population growth. Science 171, pp. 1212– Franceschini S (2015) Eco-innovation dynamics and sustainability – new perspectives in innovation studies illuminated through the case of lighting and its energy consumption. PhD thesis DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby Graedel TE, Allenby BR (1995) Industrial Ecology. Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Steffen W, Broadgate W, Deutsch L, Gaffney O, Ludwig C (2015a) The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The great acceleration. The Anthropocene Review 2(1), Steffen W, Richardson K, Rockström J et al. (2015b) Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 347(6223), Tsao JY, Saunders HD, Creighton JR, Coltrin ME, Simmons JA (2010) Solid-state lighting: an energy-economics perspective. J. Phys.D: Appl. Phys. 43, (17p) References