Footprint (PEF) and Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) methods. They were
adopted by the Commission in April 2013 [2] and published in May 2013 on the
Official Journal of the European Union.
The intention was to provide industry, member states and NGOs with a solid
science-based LCA calculation tool that would lead to results more reproducible,
reliable and verifiable. The achievement of these ambitious objectives, however,
requires the development of product category rules (organisation sectoral rules for
the implementation of OEF) and a number of additional features like clear rules on
verification, communication, data quality, etc. In order to develop and test all these
new features the Commission decided to launch, in tight collaboration with all
stakeholders, a pilot phase (2013–2017).
During the special session on PEF at LCM 2017 conference the work done
during the pilot phase has been analysed from different viewpoints and some
preliminary insight about possible future application of PEF/OEF has been drawn.
2 Summary of the Presentations Delivered
The first presentation was delivered by An De Schryver from the European
Commission. Ms. De Schryver presented the main outcomes of the Environmental
Footprint (EF) pilot phase. The EF pilot phase has gathered about 300 stakeholders
from worldwide, actively developing Product Environmental Footprint Category
Rules (PEFCRs) and Organisation Environmental Footprint Sectoral Rules
(OEFSRs). These organisations (companies, industry associations, governments,
NGOs) have invested important resources to develop a work that they consider key
for their future respective interests. On top of the 300 stakeholders “doing” the
work, there have been more than 2000 stakeholders who have been monitoring the
developments and participating to the several online consultations run during these
years. This has been the first case of such a wide exercise run by the European
Commission and surely shows the high political and technical relevance of the
dossier.
Ms. De Schryver highlighted the main results achieved during the pilot phase. In
particular she stressed the following ones:
• Implementation of the materiality principle. It is well known to LCA practitioners that even for the most complicated products there are a limited number
of processes that drives the majority of the impacts. The hotspot analysis procedure developed for PEF allows to identify the most relevant impact categories,
life cycle stages, processes, and direct elementary flows, i.e. those contributing
to at least 80% of the environmental impacts. The driving processes will be
those for which company and/or site specific data will be requested.
• Implementation of the Data Needs Matrix (DNM). Once the most relevant
processes are identified, clear instruction on which data shall be collected and
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M. Guiton and E. Benetto
adopted by the Commission in April 2013 [2] and published in May 2013 on the
Official Journal of the European Union.
The intention was to provide industry, member states and NGOs with a solid
science-based LCA calculation tool that would lead to results more reproducible,
reliable and verifiable. The achievement of these ambitious objectives, however,
requires the development of product category rules (organisation sectoral rules for
the implementation of OEF) and a number of additional features like clear rules on
verification, communication, data quality, etc. In order to develop and test all these
new features the Commission decided to launch, in tight collaboration with all
stakeholders, a pilot phase (2013–2017).
During the special session on PEF at LCM 2017 conference the work done
during the pilot phase has been analysed from different viewpoints and some
preliminary insight about possible future application of PEF/OEF has been drawn.
2 Summary of the Presentations Delivered
The first presentation was delivered by An De Schryver from the European
Commission. Ms. De Schryver presented the main outcomes of the Environmental
Footprint (EF) pilot phase. The EF pilot phase has gathered about 300 stakeholders
from worldwide, actively developing Product Environmental Footprint Category
Rules (PEFCRs) and Organisation Environmental Footprint Sectoral Rules
(OEFSRs). These organisations (companies, industry associations, governments,
NGOs) have invested important resources to develop a work that they consider key
for their future respective interests. On top of the 300 stakeholders “doing” the
work, there have been more than 2000 stakeholders who have been monitoring the
developments and participating to the several online consultations run during these
years. This has been the first case of such a wide exercise run by the European
Commission and surely shows the high political and technical relevance of the
dossier.
Ms. De Schryver highlighted the main results achieved during the pilot phase. In
particular she stressed the following ones:
• Implementation of the materiality principle. It is well known to LCA practitioners that even for the most complicated products there are a limited number
of processes that drives the majority of the impacts. The hotspot analysis procedure developed for PEF allows to identify the most relevant impact categories,
life cycle stages, processes, and direct elementary flows, i.e. those contributing
to at least 80% of the environmental impacts. The driving processes will be
those for which company and/or site specific data will be requested.
• Implementation of the Data Needs Matrix (DNM). Once the most relevant
processes are identified, clear instruction on which data shall be collected and
516
M. Guiton and E. Benetto