1. Product Environmental Footprint (PEF)
- status update -
Michele Galatola
Product Team Leader
Sustainable Production, Products & Consumption European Commission - DG Environment

2. Main limitations existing in 2011
Too many competing LCA-based standards, none of them could be really used in EU policy making due methodological requirements that were too flexible, weak or even missing.
Proliferation of PCRs, sometime with conflicting requirements and weak development processes
The concepts of benchmark and classes of performance are not sufficiently addressed
Lack of reliable secondary LCI data
Lack of clear guidance on what and how to communicate in B2B and B2C settings
Lack of tailored verification approaches

3. EF pilot phase 1st wave of pilots 2nd wave of pilots
Batteries and accumulators
Leather
Decorative paints
Thermal insulation
Hot & cold water pipe systems
Beer
Liquid household detergents
Coffee
IT equipment
Fish
Metal sheets
Dairy products
Non-leather shoes
Feed
Photovoltaic electricity generation
Meat
Stationary
Pet food
Intermediate paper products
T-shirts
Olive oil
Uninterrupted power supplies
Pasta
Retailer sector
Wine
Copper sector
Packed water

4. To calculate the environmental footprint: What does that mean?
LC model
Resource depletion
Climate change
Water depletion
Particu-late matter
Land transfor-mation
Radiation
Human toxicity
Acidifi-cation
Ozone depletion
Eutro-phication
Eco-toxicity
Lots of modelling choices

5. Product average LC model with impact assessment results
Water depletion
Land transfor-mation
Climate change
Particu-late matter
Heavy Duty Liquid Laundry
Detergents (HDLLD)
Eutro-phication
Acidifi-cation
Resource depletion
Eco-toxicity
Human toxicity
Ozone depletion
Radiation

6. Water depletion
Relevant environmental impacts?
Land transfor-mation
Climate change
Particu-late matter
Eutro-phication
Acidifi-cation
Resource depletion
Eco-toxicity
Human toxicity
Ozone depletion
Radiation

7. Most relevant impact categories
Impact category
Contribution (%)
Climate change
21.5
Ozone depletion
3.0
Human toxicity - cancer effects
1.3
Human toxicity - non-cancer effects
4.9
Particulate matter
0.1
Ionizing radiation HH
0.5
Photochemical ozone formation
2.4
Acidification
18.5
Eutrophication - terrestrial
1.0
Eutrophication - freshwater
Eutrophication - marine
Ecotoxicity - freshwater
Land use
14.3
Resource depletion - water
18.6
Resource depletion – mineral, fossil
12.7
The most relevant impact categories are those that cumulatively contribute at least to 80% of the total impact

8. Chemical ingredients sources and manufacturing
Packaging raw materials sourcing and manufacturing
Water depletion
Relevant stages and processes?
Land transfor-mation
Transport to processing plant
Transport to processing plant
Climate change
HDDL manufacture
Particu-late matter
Eutro-phication
Acidifi-cation
Resource depletion
Eco-toxicity
Human toxicity
Product use
Ozone depletion
Radiation
Waste water treatment

9. Most relevant processes
Contribution (%)
Process A
8.9
Process B
61.4
Process C
23.4
Process D
2.8
Process E
1.5
Process F
0.9
Other processes
The most relevant processes are those that cumulatively contribute at least to 80% of the impact for any of the most relevant impact categories

10. Most relevant elementary flows
Inventory flow
Substance 1
Substance 2
Substance 3
Substance 4
Substance 5
Total
Process A
249 85 6 45 5
390
Process B
1100
600
500
450 50
2700
Process C
300
250 20 30
430
1030
Process D 60 10
125
Process E 64 1 68
Process F 15 8 3 41
Other processes
1803
986
563
546
497
4395
Inventory flow
Substance 1
Substance 2
Substance 3
Substance 4
Substance 5
Total
Process A
64%
22% 2%
12% 1%
100%
Process B
41%
19%
17%
Process C
29%
24% 3%
42%
Process D
48%
16% 8% 4%
Process E
94%
Process F
37%
20% 7%
Other processes

11. Benchmark
The benchmark corresponds to the Environmental Profile of the Representative Product
The Representative Product shall cover all potential technologies/materials that fulfil the scope and it is modelled based on EU consumption.
The benchmark can be calculated in four different ways:
List of values per impact category
Range of values per impact category
Climate change kg CO2eq 100
Water scarcity m3 200
Acidification mol H+ eq 150 …
Climate change kg CO2eq
Water scarcity m
Acidification mol H+ eq …
Single score, single value
Single score, range
Total impact 100
Total impact

12. EF (quasi)reality-check with few months to go
Initial situation
Situation after pilot phase
LCA standards too flexible to guarantee reproducibility and comparability of results
A single method at EU level (published in the OJEU), much stricter in terms of requirements, leading to results more reproducible and comparable
Proliferation of PCRs often dealing with similar or identical products
The enforcement of the representativity rules guarantees the existence of only 1 set of rules for each product group
Benchmarks not existing
Benchmarks developed for about 20 product groups
Lack of high quality free secondary data
(see next slide)
Labelling and other communication activities not always focused on the most relevant issues
Materiality principle fully implemented

13. LCI data tenders High quality free secondary datasets
Energy and transport All datasets available at
Chemicals
Chemicals for paints Evaluation completed, contracts in preparation
Metals & minerals These datasets should become available in late-January 2017
Feed
Food & agriculture
Packaging Deadline to apply was 4 October – datasets by early-March 2017
Textile Deadline to apply was 4 October – datasets by early-March 2017
Incineration Deadline to apply is 19 October – datasets by mid-March 2017
Other EoL processes
Recycling Expected publication around end of October – signature of
Plastics the contracts before the end of the year – datasets should
Electrical and electronics become available around mid-April 2017
Other (leftover)

14. What PEF cannot deliver
In the short term
Toxicity-related impacts require further work (improvements expected in 2018
Classes of performance (but the traffic light system is immediately implementable)
Biodiversity as an “impact category” (but 6 out of the 15 impact categories used includes effects on biodiversity)
Never
Social information
Consequential information (analysis of large scale policy scenarios)

15. Outlook
EC Evaluation
Peer review
Policy discussion
2017
2018

16. https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/wikis/display/EUENVFP/