214
some current legislations and investigated in ongoing policy initiatives, e.g. the
Product Environmental Footprint method (PEF) (European Union 2013 ), which is
currently widely discussed amongst various stakeholders (Finkbeiner 2014 ; Galatola
and Pant 2014 ; Lehmann et al. 2015 ). Besides this, LCA has been widely applied in
practice for many years, and several industries, companies and associations are
actively developing LCA approaches (Finkbeiner et al. 2000 ). Examples are the World
Steel Association and WorldAutoSteel, its automotive group, which published their
position to plea for LC based regulation, e.g. in automotive CO 2 legislation and
proposes to consider LCT in post 2020 legislation (World Steel Association 2013 ).
Against this background, in 2013 WorldAutoSteel commissioned Technische
Universität Berlin (TUB) to explore and develop policy options for integrating LCA
into (automotive) legislation. The research project is still ongoing.
Automotive CO 2 legislation is a relevant example for illustrating the necessity
for considering a LC perspective. The reason is that it is shown that the current
focus on tailpipe or exhaust emissions (the use phase) is not sustainable anymore
because CO 2 reductions in the use phase can come along with increasing CO 2 emissions in other LC phases like the production phase (Daimler 2014 ; Krinke 2009 ;
Kendall and Price 2012 ; PE International 2013 ), which are typically referred to as
the embodied energy or environmental footprint.
The fi rst idea in the research project was to “simply” move from tailpipe based
CO 2 limits to LC based CO 2 limits. But the second thought was to explore alternative
policy options as well. The underlying methodology and the results are presented in
Sects. 2 and 3 respectively. A discussion of the key fi ndings and an outlook is provided in Sect. 4 .
Though the policy options are developed and described for the example of CO 2
legislation in the automotive sector, they generally can be transferred to other sectors and other environmental impacts as well.
2 Methodology
The methodology of the research process to explore and describe different policy
options is presented below. It comprises the identifi cation of various policy options
including prioritization and the identifi cation and description of characteristics
of the prioritized policy options, including e.g. technical requirements as well as
potential strengths, opportunities, and threats.
2.1 Identifi cation of Policy Options
To identify the policy options, the authors chose both a theoretical and practical
approach. In the theoretical approach, they used four different structural elements,
which were combined to develop policy options. In the practical approach, they
A. Lehmann et al.
some current legislations and investigated in ongoing policy initiatives, e.g. the
Product Environmental Footprint method (PEF) (European Union 2013 ), which is
currently widely discussed amongst various stakeholders (Finkbeiner 2014 ; Galatola
and Pant 2014 ; Lehmann et al. 2015 ). Besides this, LCA has been widely applied in
practice for many years, and several industries, companies and associations are
actively developing LCA approaches (Finkbeiner et al. 2000 ). Examples are the World
Steel Association and WorldAutoSteel, its automotive group, which published their
position to plea for LC based regulation, e.g. in automotive CO 2 legislation and
proposes to consider LCT in post 2020 legislation (World Steel Association 2013 ).
Against this background, in 2013 WorldAutoSteel commissioned Technische
Universität Berlin (TUB) to explore and develop policy options for integrating LCA
into (automotive) legislation. The research project is still ongoing.
Automotive CO 2 legislation is a relevant example for illustrating the necessity
for considering a LC perspective. The reason is that it is shown that the current
focus on tailpipe or exhaust emissions (the use phase) is not sustainable anymore
because CO 2 reductions in the use phase can come along with increasing CO 2 emissions in other LC phases like the production phase (Daimler 2014 ; Krinke 2009 ;
Kendall and Price 2012 ; PE International 2013 ), which are typically referred to as
the embodied energy or environmental footprint.
The fi rst idea in the research project was to “simply” move from tailpipe based
CO 2 limits to LC based CO 2 limits. But the second thought was to explore alternative
policy options as well. The underlying methodology and the results are presented in
Sects. 2 and 3 respectively. A discussion of the key fi ndings and an outlook is provided in Sect. 4 .
Though the policy options are developed and described for the example of CO 2
legislation in the automotive sector, they generally can be transferred to other sectors and other environmental impacts as well.
2 Methodology
The methodology of the research process to explore and describe different policy
options is presented below. It comprises the identifi cation of various policy options
including prioritization and the identifi cation and description of characteristics
of the prioritized policy options, including e.g. technical requirements as well as
potential strengths, opportunities, and threats.
2.1 Identifi cation of Policy Options
To identify the policy options, the authors chose both a theoretical and practical
approach. In the theoretical approach, they used four different structural elements,
which were combined to develop policy options. In the practical approach, they
A. Lehmann et al.