Assessing product sustainability

 

Environmental assessment of materials should ideally be based on a detailed evaluation of emissions, resource use and all other impacts of the actual products proposed for use in specific situations and against broad based, quantified environmental criteria. This kind of process is undertaken in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for example, and a process for LCA’s is codified in a set of international standards {International Organisation for Standardisation, ISO 14040}.  

Unfortunately due to the significant complexity of LCA it is not currently possible or practical to use it for every material selection decision, especially as there is a lack of generally available data, so the principles of life-cycle thinking and LCA science are integrated into the ecospecifier assessment methodology.

As of Jan 20th 2008 the amount of detail in ECG listings has been significantly upgraded across all ecospecifier websites, however UAE is the first to have all new UAE ECG listings in the new detailed LCA format.

These include:

• Main Assessment Headings including: Overview, Product Description, Technical Specifications, Integrated Design and Policy Implications, Human Health, Environmental Quality, Resource Depletion, Green Building Rating Scheme Pre-assessments and Specification Systems Categories for the UK and USA.Product assessments look beyond only ‘manufacturer’ or ‘in-use’ stage impacts, to include all relevant stages from raw material extraction right through to disposal, recovery and re-use
• Consideration of a broad group of environmental and health issues, but with a focus on areas of dominant impacts
• Consideration of the functionality, longevity, maintenance requirements, re-usability, design for deconstruction, recyclability, extended producer responsibility and ‘closed loop’ materials characteristic of the product in its evaluation

The approach taken to ecospecifier.ae therefore is to:

• Present LCA based information in a format that can be referenced to ISO 14040 LCAs and in a clear format that encourages consideration of appropriate criteria
• Provide decision-making guides for common categories of products that enable the decision maker to assess the relative importance of the benefits and disadvantages of a product for an application
• Provide transparent differential levels of information about products with clear indicators about the depth of assessment used, reference materials, test data sighted and expert assessment used
• Ensure an ongoing, constantly updated and increasing depth of analysis and life cycle assessment to provide specific guidance to users as the industry knowledge base increases
• If it is apparent that a product provides sufficient merit to be included on ecospecifier, it can be included in basic form (up to 150 words and contact details), without cost to manufacturers.

Manufacturers, once their products are accepted for listing, can elect to add further detail via an ‘Enhanced Content’ listing with Green Rating Scheme pre-assessment [ECG] that ensures the information is available to all as detailed in Product listings and information sources.