LC.net issue 7Life Cycle Initiative's Newsletter
Spring 2006
The Life Cycle Initiative (LCInitiative) is pleased to introduce its website, in a new format based on ESTIS where people interested in LCA issues as well as the LCInitiative Task Force members and regional communities from Africa, Asia and Latin America can share information and knowledge.
ESTIS is an Information System (IS) management tool that was developed by UNEP DTIE’s International Environmental Technology Centre (IETC in Japan) to better meet the "needs" of technology users and providers, particularly in developing countries and, hence, to assist the transfer of Environmentally Sound Technologies (EST) and knowledge. This is a free tool hosted by the Production and Consumption Branch (P&C) at UNEP DTIE that facilitates the delivery of the LCInitiative through the participation of growing networks of regional partners and experts.
There are 3 different levels of access to and ways of working with this portal:
- open access to the main web site and public documents (http://lcinitiative.unep.fr/);
- password restricted access to the working spaces of the communities (Task Forces or Regional Networks);
- option to modify website content by becoming a member of a Task Force or a Regional Network
To become a member of a community (i.e. a Task Force or a Regional Network), please follow the instructions indicated in the corresponding websites.
During the first four years of the LCInitiative (first phase), relevant work and products for the establishment of the basis of the three LC Programs (LCM, LCI, LCIA) were concluded (see list of our publications) or are to be finalised:
- Training kits for trainers and delegates for LCA and LCM,
- LCM Guide,
- Life Cycle Inventory databases overview,
- Definition of current practice and guidelines towards global practice.
For an efficient monitoring process of the foreseen deliverables and the activities of the Task Forces to be communicated to the International Life Cycle Panel (ILCP), LCInitiative Management Tables for each program have been put into effect. The Management Tables include all relevant information of on-going or finished projects as well as corresponding contact lists. These Tables can only be used by the Program managers and TF leaders.
The second phase of the Life Cycle Initiative will start in July 2006 after the finalisation of the existing deliverables. There will be a change in focus from science to an orientation towards practice with a particular relevance for developing countries and co-operation issues. Worldwide, there is a clear demand for capacity building in LCM, LCC and LCA.
The following objectives are proposed for the 2nd Phase of the Life Cycle Initiative:
- Create capacity in the use of life cycle approaches in key stakeholders worldwide
- Facilitate the use of life cycle approaches worldwide.
- Collect and disseminate information on successful applications of life cycle approaches related to the identified sustainable consumption and production clusters
- Share knowledge about the interface between life cycle approaches and other tools (e.g., certification systems);
- Identify best practice indicators and communication strategies for life cycle management;
- Expand the availability of sound LCA data and methods;
The following four work areas are planned for the 2nd phase of the Life Cycle Initiative:
1. Capacity building on LCA, LCC and LCM (with a special focus on developing countries and SMEs)
2. Life Cycle Approaches applied to Consumption Clusters (starting with housing, and including food, mobility and consumer products)
3. Tools and measures to enhance sustainable production, use and end-of-life management of natural resources in a life cycle perspective
4. Life Cycle Methodologies (continuing and integrating the successful work on LCI databases and methodology, LCIA methods and inclusion of social aspects)
Your feedback on this first outline of the 2nd phase is much welcomed.
 The UNEP/ SETAC Life Cycle Initiative has concluded the evaluation phase of the first version of the LCA award and is ready to inform on the activity and announce first results.
28 applicants from developing countries participated in this international LCA competition and the award was free LCA software licenses for 12 months.
The evaluation committee composed of representatives of the LCA tools’ companies and selected Task Force managers did a thorough evaluation according to the following criteria:
• Capacity Building (training, educational aspects, learning by doing)
• Multiplier function (publication, training, use and adaptation of existing guiding documents)
• Bringing partners in co-operation (development of regional competence networks)
• Relevance for the region
• Scientific excellence regarding social and environmental aspects
• Marketing aspects
The proposals dealt with in general critical and most relevant issues for the regions. The evaluation committee agreed to award 21 proposals with one free LCA software and access to a LCI database for 1 year. Three proposals still need some clarification before a final decision can be made.
After that period of time, the applicant shall send a project report to apply for a further three year software license and an invitation to share their projects and receive the Award at a high level, international conference.
The UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative would like to thank the applicants for submitting the project proposal for the LCA award scheme and wishes those who were awarded a free software and database licence a good project elaboration during this year. The unsuccessful applicants are encouraged to submit improved proposals for the next call.
 Since 2002, there has been considerable growth in the LCinitiative membership. Currently, 863 interested members are registered in the UNEP’s database and 306 experts are working in the three Working Groups and 13 Task Forces. In Latin America, Africa and Asia, around 250 specialists were identified. The largest group of members (almost 600) are international companies or institutions or other countries like North America, Europe and Asia/ Pacific.
Newly created TF are requiring the support of experts. If you are willing to cooperate with the activities of the TF, please select the relevant TF and formalise your support by filling in the application form below by mailing it to us. We will coordinate your involvement as soon as possible.
The National Metal and Materials Technology Center (MTEC) of Thailand organized this International Workshop “Capacity Building on Life Cycle Assessment in APEC Economies”. Participants came from Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Some of the issues raised at a macro-level relevant to UNEP are:
- Risk of re-inventing the wheel as most countries develop their own LCA databases. It is important that the structure, scope and assumptions are comparable to allow corporations and institutions make comparable analysis of their products in different countries (especially as production and trade is increasingly trans-boundary).
- Limited funding for the development of LCA databases and how important the role of governments is to push these activities.
- Limited link between developed LCAs and policies that result in more academic and less pragmatic works that results in databases as an end goal and not as means, i.e., to change policies or consumer/business behaviors. LCA specialists do not often have clear how their works could/would be used by governments at a policy level or by businesses in order to improve their performance.
The LCInitiative is considering in the planning of the 2nd phase issues of concern that arose from these event’s discussions.
More information on this activity can be found under: http://www.mtec.or.th/Th/course_seminar/detail/capec/index.html
The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation calls in Chapter III (http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/WSSD_POI_PD/English/POIChapter3.htm) for the development of “a 10-year framework of programs in support of regional and national initiatives to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production.” The framework should strengthen international cooperation and increase exchange of information and best practices to facilitate the implementation of national and regional programmes to promote sustainable consumption and production. The first international expert meeting (http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sdissues/consumption/Marrakech/conprod10Yglobmeet.htm) on the 10-year framework took place in Marrakech, Morocco, 16-19 June 2003, organized by DESA's Division for Sustainable Development and UNEP. The meeting launched the “Marrakech Process” (MP), including regular global and regional meetings supported by informal expert task forces and roundtables to promote progress on the 10-year framework on sustainable consumption and production. UNEP and DESA's Division for Sustainable Development, have been identified as the leading agencies in promoting and developing the 10-year Framework of Programmes at the global and regional level.
At the regional level meetings have been held in Asia-Pacific (http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sdissues/consumption/Marrakech/conprod10Yasi.htm) and Latin America and the Caribbean (http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sdissues/consumption/Marrakech/conprod10Ylat.htm), where regional needs and priorities have been identified and regional strategies on sustainable consumption and production have been developed. In order to contribute to an effective implementation of commitments of the MP, various countries are taking the lead in creating task forces. A Marrakech task force is a voluntary initiative lead by a country -in co-operation with other North and South partners- committed to carry out a set of activities which support the implementation of specific projects on SCP. The most recent meeting of the Marrakech Process was held in Costa Rica in September 2005 where the first Marrakech Task Forces (MTFs) were launched. At the moment, there are six task forces:
- Sustainable Lifestyles (Sweden);
- Sustainable Product Policies (United Kingdom);
- Co-operation with Africa (on leapfrogging to SCP) (Germany);
- Sustainable Procurement (Switzerland);
- Sustainable Tourism (France);
- Sustainable Building and Construction (Finland).
The LCInitiative closely follows the initial activities of the mentioned TF in order to promote joint work in an early phase. See more information on the task forces under the following web site:
http://www.unep.fr/pc/sustain/10year/taskforce.htm
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Wuppertal Institute (WI) have established the UNEP/Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP) (25th November 2005). This new organisation is supported by the Business and Employment Support Agency of Wuppertal, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry for Environment, Agriculture and Consumer Protection.
The CSCP is a new member of the international family of UNEP collaborating centres i.e. the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC), the Global Resource Information Database (GRID), the UNEP Collaborating Centre on Energy and Environment (UCCEE), the UNEP Collaborating Centre on Water and Environment (UCC-Water) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
The Centre's lifespan is not time-limited, but the associated joint working plan covers the initial three years.
The centre's objectives for the next three years are to:
- Monitor and report global and regional trends in SCP;
- Contribute to the adoption and implementation of policies and measures aimed at promoting CSP patterns by understanding global and regional priorities;
- Raise awareness within, and provide support to, the private sector in understanding their role in achieving SCP patterns along the global value chain and in specific regions;
- Raise awareness within, and provide support to, consumer groups in understanding their role in achieving SCP patterns;
- Achieve effective cooperation and leverage with partners.
The CSCP has agreed on three themes around which its work in the field of Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) will be grouped. These themes link the SCP agenda to concrete and applied action fields.
1. Sustainable Consumption and Production for Regional Development.
Aims of this working field are:
- Awareness raising and capacity building for governments
- Collaboration with local sustainable development agencies such as Cleaner Production Centres to carry out knowledge transfer, capacity building and mutual learning on SCP at the regional level
- The incorporation of SCP into micro- and development finance activities
2. Changing individual and institutional patterns of consumption.
For institutional consumers, instruments and tools are needed to implement SCP issues across organisations and to mainstream these into procurement decisions. In a similar way to individual purchasing decisions, an awareness of, and knowledge about, SCP issues is necessary at the point when procurement decisions are made.
The following issues are priorities in the CSCP's work on achieving sustainable consumption patterns:
- Encouraging sustainable lifestyles
- Communicating SCP effectively to individual and institutional consumers
- Strengthening the role of government in promoting sustainable lifestyles
3. Encouraging Responsible Industrial Development (RID)
The CSCP focuses on the following priorities in the area of responsible industrial development (RID):
- Engagement of SMEs and TNCs in SCP activities
- The role of different industry sectors concerning RID
- Framework conditions and policy instruments for RID
- RID from a regional perspective and its effect on competitiveness
- New technologies and RID
The Life Cycle Initiative envisages a collaboration with the center on projects that addresses LCA or LCM.
See http://www.scp-centre.org/ for more information.
In co-operation with the EC, UNEP is setting up a new international panel on the use of natural resources and synergies. This can be achieved by integrating the existing ILCP (International Life Cycle Panel) into this project.
The objective of the Panel will be to provide independent advice to the European Commission, interested governments and international organizations on the key environmental impacts of natural resource extraction and use in a life-cycle perspective and on approaches to reducing impacts, aimed at decoupling environmental impacts from economical growth.
The Panel will also provide advice and support to capacity building in developing countries in relation to resources extraction and use in a life-cycle perspective.
In order to decouple environmental degradation from economical growth, changing unsustainable patterns of consumption and production is crucial. The Panel can help to encourage a shift towards sustainable consumption and production and to contribute to the Marrakech Process on the 10-year framework on SCP as well as to the relevant sessions of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and other international organizations. The Panel will work closely with the 3R Initiative, introduced by Japan, as starting point for pursuing globally a sound-material cycle society through the “3Rs” of reduce, reuse and recycle.
The Panel will more specifically develop sustainability benchmarks for extracting, harvesting, transporting and storing materials and products coming from outside the EU, to include not only material quality standards but also production quality standards taking into account social and environmental issues.
Each year the Panel will propose an Annual Work Programme and a rolling three-year program for confirmation or modification. The first year, the Panel will concentrate on reviewing progress on decoupling economic growth from environmental impacts of resource use at international level and on the largest trade flows to test its capacity in an initially reduced field of activity.
For more information, see: http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/natres/
 The building and construction sector contributes on one hand to a large proportion of the world’s GDP but on the other hand is widely responsible for resource depletion, waste generation and greenhouse gas emissions. It is a key sector for sustainable development, both in terms of the important benefits it contributes to society and the considerable negative impacts it may cause if appropriate considerations are not given to the entire life span of buildings. Therefore, UNEP launched in February 2006 the Sustainable Building and Construction Initiative (SBCI). This global Initiative aims at addressing sustainability in this sector by:
- Establishing global baselines for sustainable development,
- Developing tools and strategies enabling companies to meet those baselines,
- Implementing Pilot projects,
- Promoting and supporting adoption of those tools and strategies by governments and other sectors influencing the conditions for the building and construction sector.
UNEP DTIE hosts the Secretariat of the Sustainable Building and Construction Initiative. For more information, please contact the SBCI Secretariat: sbci@unep.fr
• LCA Forum on ‘Buildings – Housing – Lifestyles’ (held in German), Zurich, Switzerland, 27 March 2006 (in German); link to http://www.lcainfo.ch/df
• Working groups and task forces meetings of the Life Cycle Initiative, in conjunction with SETAC Europe Annual Meeting, The Hague, The Netherlands, 9 May 2006; link to http://www.setaceumeeting.org/thehague/
• International Workshop ‘Material Design and System Analysis - Integration of Economic and Environmental Aspects into the Development Phase’, Karlsruhe, Germany, 16-18 May 2006; link to http://itc-zts.ka.fzk.de/_private/Materialentwicklung/index.htm
• Definition of Best Indicators for Land Use Impacts for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - Working Group meeting for the Task Force on Natural Resources and Land Use, Centre for Environmental Strategy, Guildford, UK, 12 - 13 June 2006, link to http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/ias/events.html#lca
• 2nd International Conference on Quantified Eco-Efficiency Analysis for Sustainability, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands, 28 - 30 June 2006; link to website http://www.eco-efficiency-conf.org/
• 29th LCA Discussion Forum - Life Cycle Perspective for Social Impacts: Needs and challenges, Lausanne, Switzerland, 15th of June 2006; link to http://www.lcainfo.ch/df/
• Meeting of task force on inclusion of social aspects, in conjunction with LCA Forum, Lausanne, Switzerland, 16 - 17 June 2006
• InLCA/LCM 2006 Business and Government Moving Ahead, Washington DC, 4 - 6 October 2006 (has been postponed); link to http://lcacenter.org/InLCA2006/index.html
• 1st specialized Latin American workshop on Life Cycle Inventories - Organized by the Task Force on LCI Databases and Capacity Building of the Life Cycle Initiative and supported by CENICA (The National Center for Environmental Research and Training), Mexico, October (to be confirmed) 2006
• 7th International Conference on EcoBalance"Designing Our Future Society Using Systems Thinking", 14-16 November 2006, link to http://www.sntt.or.jp/ecobalance7/
• Working groups and task forces meetings of the Life Cycle Initiative, in conjunction with SETAC North America Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada, 7 November 2006; link to http://www.setac.org/montreal/
• SETAC Europe
• 13th LCA Case Studies Symposium, Stuttgart, Germany, 7-8 December 2006, link to http://www.setaceumeeting.org/lca2006/
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