21 st Annual Conference. Delivering sustainable solutions in a more competitive world Mercury Lamps...

21st Annual Conference

Delivering sustainable solutions in a more competitive world

Mercury Lamps - Life Cycle Assessment for Product Stewardship

Peter Garrett – ERM New Zealand

15th October 2009


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Agenda

• Who is ERM?

• LCA and product stewardship

• Key points of LCA process

• Case study: Mercury lamps in NZ


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ERM – Worldwide Environmental Consultancy

350 staff in Australia and New Zealand

• ERM services in this area:

• Product Stewardship Accreditation Assessors (NZ MfE)

• Life cycle management (LCM) and assessment (LCA)

• Waste management

- Strategy

- Minimisation

- Technology appraisal

- Forecasting


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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

• ‘Cradle to grave’ environmental accounting

• exchanges of energy and materials with the environment at each stage of the life cycle

• emissions to air, land and water

• 1960s energy analysis, developed by SETAC in the 1980s and ISO in the 1990s (ISO 14040/44)

• Streamlined LCA simplifies the full-blown approach

• Carbon footprinting is streamlined LCA through consideration of only carbon (global warming impacts)


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LCA, Product Stewardship & Waste Management

• LCA is best-practice method for assessing environmental impacts for product stewardship and waste management:

• NZ Waste Minimisation Act supports life cycle approach under Product Stewardship

• EU thematic strategy on waste – life cycle approach

• EU Integrated Product Policy – life cycle approach

• UNEP Environment programme on Life Cycle Management

• Defra (UK) LCA assessments formally integrated into the Business cases for PFI for waste

• Harvard Business Review September 2009 – LCA needs to be a core business competence


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Impacts Across Value Chains

• Impacts occur at every stage of the product life cycle

• Controlling direct impacts can lead to ‘burden shifting’ and may be counter-productive

• Need to take an holistic view

INDIRECTDIRECT

RetailTransport Production DistributionStorage & Retail Transport

Storage & Consumption DisposalRaw

Materials


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Define the Life Cycle System

• Define aim of LCA

• Define product ‘equivalence’

• define study flow

• Set system boundary

• identify life cycle stages

• use appropriate cut-off

• Quantify the flows

• Calculate the impacts

• Interpret and assess results and options

• Data collection and selection is key:

• ensure consistency and transparent assumptions


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Effective Decision Support

• Benefits of LCA for Product Stewardship:

• Scientifically robust results

• Reduces risk

• Understand environmental benefits

• Supports decision making:

- inform policy

- inform marketing claims

- support green purchasing

- basis for awards/credentials

- use in product design/development process

- aid investment decisions (eg waste technology/manufacturing)


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LCA Applications

• Applications:

• An individual

• A product/service

• A site

• A business

• A sector

• A new enterprise

• Any choice


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Mercury lamps in NZ


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Background

• Fully ISO compliant LCA

• Aim to understand the environmental impacts of mercury-containing lamps to help inform potential policy under Waste Minimisation Act

• Inform the evidence base for discussions with stakeholders on policy options

• Series of three reports on mercury: (1) New Zealand Lighting Industry Product Stewardship Scheme (PHASE 1 Assessment) and (2) Review and Mercury Inventory for New Zealand 2008

• Issues surrounding:

- What are the impacts of mercury?

- Is a take-back scheme environmentally beneficial?

» What effect does take-back collection rate have?

» How does mercury-level effect the impacts?

- What effect will lamp lifetime and efficiency have?

• Links will be available at:


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Goal & Scope

1. Assess “typical” mercury-containing lamps in New Zealand

2. Determine whole-life environmental impacts:

• raw materials, import, lamp production, distribution, use, and waste management

3. Assessed over 100,000 hours of operation

• Results are not comparable across lamp types


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Life Cycle for Lamps

• Scenarios:

• Recovery and recycling rates of 0%, 9%, 50% and 80%

• Reduced mercury level by 20%

• Extended lifetime of 50%

• Increased operating efficiency 10%

ENERG

Y

SUP

PLY

S

YSTE

MS

OT

H

ER

PR

ODUCT

SYST

EMS

ENVIRONMENT: RESOURCES

ENVIRONMENT: AIR, LAND AND WATER

Raw material production

Usage

Lamp production

Lamp retail

Lamp distribution

Waste management

Incineration Landfill Recycling

Benefits of recycled materials


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Study Results – Not yet published!

• Full range of environmental impacts:

- depletion of resources;

- global warming;

- stratospheric ozone depletion;

- human toxicity;

- fresh-water and marine aquatic eco-toxicity;

- terrestrial ecotoxicity;

- photo-oxidant formation;

- acidification; and

- eutrophication.

• Result shown by:

• By life cycle stage (manufacture, transport, use, disposal, recycling/recovery)

• By lamp type

• Benefits of options assessed

• Issues of economics and of practicability (e.g. consumer engagement) are outside of the scope of this study

-2.00

-1.50

-1.00

-0.50

0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

1 1 2 2 3 3 Baseline E-Fuel Baseline E-Fuel Baseline E-Fuel

GW

P -

Sh

ort

to

ns

CO

2e

Production End-use Offset benefit


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Study Outcomes – Mercury Lamps in NZ

• Scientifically based results of environmental impacts

• Externally reviewed, ISO compliant, New Zealand specific

• Identify scale of environmental benefits across supply chain

• Of increased recycling/recovery

• Comparable within lamp types

• Prioritise where impacts/benefit arise in the life cycle

• Risk minimisation

• Inform government policy / targets / legislation

• Transparent and open information to industry

• Results published by end 2009


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Any questions?

Thank you for listening

21st Annual Conference

21 st Annual Conference. Delivering sustainable solutions in a more competitive world Mercury Lamps...

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