What are important environmental impact

categories?
– results from expert inquiry

Riina Antikainen

Finnish Environment Institute

Biorefine vuosiseminaari 1.11.2011
15.11.2011
Contents

Background
Methodological issues
Results from survey
Conclusions and summary

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Sustainability aspects – 3 Ps
Sustainable
More sustainable –
The most sustainable?
Economic -
prosperity

Socio-cultural –
Ecologic -
People
Planet

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Taneli Duunari-Työntekijäinen, SYKE
Product life cycle
Life Cycle
Assessment
(LCA)
ISO standardized
method

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Stages of an LCA (ISO 14040:2006)

Goal and
scope definition
Direct applications:
- Product development
and improvement,
Inventory
Interpretation - Strategic planning
analysis
- Public policy making
- Marketing
- Other
Impact
assessment
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Environmental impact categories
Mid-point End-point
LCA Impact categories
Climate change
Ozone depletion
Human health
Human toxicity
Respiratory inorganics/PM
Ionizing radiation
Inventory data

(Noise)
(Accidents) Natural environment
Photochemical
ozone formation
Acidification
Eutrophication
Ecotoxicity Natural resources
(Land use)
(Depl. of natural resources)
(Soil quality impacts)
(Impacts on biodiversity) Source: ILCD 2010
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Taneli Duunari-Työntekijäinen, SYKE
Weighting

The process of converting indicator results of different

impact categories by numerical factors
May include aggregation
Optional step under ISO standard
Impact assessment phase
Based on value-choices – not scientifically based
Different preferences by individuals, organizations,
societies…
-> recommended to use different weighting factors and
methods and to conduct sensitivity analysis

No weighting in published comparative assertions

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Taneli Duunari-Työntekijäinen, SYKE
Survey and questionnaire

Aims:
to identify and to weight impact categories relevant to
assessing the environmental impacts of biomass
production
to compare pair-wise environmental impacts of four
biomasses
• Asian palm oil vs. Finnish rapeseed oil - biodiesel
• South American eucalyptus vs. Finnish birch - pulp

Finnish panelists with knowledge of environmental impacts

of biomass production

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 Biodiesel / environmental impact Weight Pulp / environmental impact Weight

15.11.201
1
Climate change 0.087 Natural land-use change 0.085
Natural land-use change 0.074 Climate change 0.081
Changes in carbon-balance and nutrient balance of 0.070 Biodiversity 0.063
soil
Agricultural land-use change 0.062 Changes in high conservation areas 0.055
Indirect land-use changes (ILUC) 0.060 Changes in carbon-balance and 0.055
nutrient balance of soil
Biodiversity 0.058 Shrinking and fragmentation of 0.053
habitats
Energy consumption (both fossil and renewable) 0.053 Indirect land-use changes (ILUC) 0.049
Eutrophication of waters 0.049 Fossil fuel depletion 0.048
Changes in high conservation areas 0.048 Energy consumption (both fossil and 0.048
Results

renewable)
Fossil fuel depletion 0.048 Water depletion 0.047
Shrinking and fragmentation of habitats 0.047 Agricultural land-use change 0.046
Water depletion 0.038 Eutrophication of waters 0.044
Impacts of climate change on the ecosystem 0.037 Changes in microclimate 0.041
producing the biomass
Changes in microclimate 0.030 Impacts of climate change on the 0.038
ecosystem producing the biomass
Human health damage due to PM10 0.028 Toxicity of the waters 0.038
Oxygen level of the water ecosystems 0.028 Acidification 0.032
Toxicity of the waters 0.027 Eutrofication of terrestrial ecosystems 0.026
Acidification 0.026 Tropospheric ozone 0.026
Eutrofication of terrestrial ecosystems 0.022 Oxygen level of the water ecosystems 0.026
Aerosol emissions 0.022 Human health damage due to PM10 0.025
Tropospheric ozone 0.021 Urban land change 0.017
Human toxicity 0.020 Human toxicity 0.016
Mineral resource depletion 0.018 Aerosol emissions 0.016
Urban land change 0.015 Mineral resource depletion 90.016
Ozone depletion 0.012 Ozone depletion 0.013
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”New” impact categories
• Half of the panelists considered LCA impact categories
insufficient
• 11 ”new” impact categories were added
• Biodiversity added most often

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 BIODIESEL PULP

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Natural land-use change 0.085
Climate change 0.087
Natural land-use change 0.074 Climate change 0.081
Changes in carbon-balance and 0.070 Biodiversity 0.063
nutrient balance of soil Changes in high conserv. areas 0.055
Agricultural land-use change 0.062 Changes in carbon-balance and 0.055
Indirect land-use changes (ILUC) 0.060 nutrient balance of soil

TOP 5

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 Ecological and socio-economic aspects in sustainability criteria

EU NED UK GER RSB Swan RSPO BSI RTRS FSC PEFC

label
Applicability BF BF/BM BF BM BF BF BM BM BM BM BM
/BE
Environmental
aspects
Climate change + + + + + + + -(+) - - -
Energy balance - - - (+) (+) + - - - - -
Air quality - + + + + - + + - - -
Water quality (+) + + + + - + + + + +
Use of water - + + + + - + + + (+) (+)
Soil quality (+) + + + + - + + + + +
Ecotoxicity (+) + + + (+) - + + + + +
Human toxicity - - - - - + - + - - -
Biodiversity + + + + + + + + + + +
Sustainable land use + + - + + - + - (+) + +
and competition with
other resources

GMOs - - - - + - + - - + - (+)*
Waste management - + (+) - - - + - - + -
and recycling
Social impacts - + + - + + + + + + +
Economic impacts - + - - + - + + + + +
+ and a shaded area indicate that the category is covered by the initiative. Note that the level of detail in methodology, indicators etc. may still vary per certification system.
(+) and a shaded area indicate that the category is mentioned in the initiative, but only on a general level or the initiative covers the issue only partly.
- indicates that the category is not covered by the initiative. 12
Source: Soimakallio et al. 2009
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Taneli Duunari-Työntekijäinen, SYKE

Regional level – ecological sustainability

indicators in Northern Carelia

(1) Top 5 ecological indicators:

Renewability of raw-materials
Preservation of natural species
Greenhouse gas emissions
Amount of rotten wood at cutting areas to be
maintained at sufficient level
Solid matter load to waters

Source:
BIOSUS-hanke / Katja Lähtinen
www.ymparisto.fi/syke/biosus
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Conclusions

The most important impact categories include

Climate change
Land use change
Biodiversity
Soil C and nutrient balance
Current LCA impact categories do not cover all the important
environmental impact categories
Not noticeably different weights for biodiesel and pulp
production chains
Weighting was a demanding task for the panelists

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Taneli Duunari-Työntekijäinen, SYKE
Summary

In general, weighting gives tools to focus on the most

relevant aspects in decision making process and help to
define the significance of each aspect for stakeholders
The weighting process and phrasing of the questions need
to be carefully designed according to targets
Knowledge and understanding of the methods
Generic or case-specific weights?
Interpretation of the results

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Acknowledgements

SUBICHOE, Sustainability of biomass utilisation in

changing operational environment (VTT, SYKE, Metla,
VATT, funded by Tekes, TEM and MMM)

Other projects:
BIOVAIKU
BIOSUS
ECOTOOL
FINLCA

More information: riina.antikainen@ymparisto.fi

Myllyviita, T., Holma, A., Antikainen R., Lähtinen, K. and Leskinen, P. 2011.
Comparing environmental impacts of biomass production chains - Application of
life cycle assessment (LCA) and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA).
Submitted to the Journal of Cleaner Production.

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