Learnings of national application of Environmental Footprint in Companies and Organizations

Session
MO.1.E || What Gets Measured, Gets Improved – Impact Assessment and Environmental Labeling Along the Production Chain

Authors
Palander, Sara; Spak, Björn; Sanne, Karin; Lorentzon, Katarina; Rydberg, Maria; Wikström, Anna

Abstract
Companies are working with life cycle thinking for different purposes such as marketing, purchasing, investments and strategies, with the objective to reduce the environmental impact from their products and services. In recent years, LCT has also been important for public policy-making and in public procurement. Methods for environmental footprinting of products and services have been and are being developed all over the world. In its communication Single Market for Green Products1 (SMGP, April 2013), the European Commission proposed actions to overcome problems on the internal market caused by this proliferation of initiatives. The SMGP established two methods, the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and the Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) to ensure quality and increase transparency of environmental information and to facilitate comparisons between products’, services’ and organizations’ environmental performance. Swedish Life Cycle Center (SLC) has during the years followed and influenced the Environmental footprint process, through participation in pilots and in the Technical Advisory Board. SLC provides an arena for industry, authorities, research institutes and universities for dialogue on methodology aspects and possible implementation. This dialogue has resulted in research projects, public seminars, conferences and a national coordination between experts. One of the SLC project, Environmental footprint in Sweden, aims to engage Swedish actors in PEF to better understand how these will affect their work. Case studies are being performed to investigate different methodology aspects from a national perspective and communicate learnings. A survey has been performed to identify the current situation for the actual implementation of PEF. The project will also be strengthening the most important outcomes of PEF; increased knowledge about LCA and products’ environmental impacts and increased collaboration within and between sectors.