a modern jrc in a modern commission micro and macro-scale
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A modern JRC
in a modern Commission
Vladimír Šucha,
Director-General
Ispra, 10 July 2015
Joint Research Centrethe European Commission's in-house science service
Serving society
Stimulating innovation
Supporting legislation
Chemical footprint at micro and macro-scale a life cycle based methodological framework
Serenella Sala
Sustainability Assessment Unit (H08)
Institute of Environment and Sustainability
The JRC inside the European Commission
“The mission of the IES is to provide scientific-technical support to the European Union's policies for the protection and sustainable development of the European and global environment”
European Commission,
Joint Research Centre (JRC),
Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES)
JRC – IES - Sustainability Assessment Unit (H08)mission and goals
Foster sustainability principles in EU policies through development/application of an integrated sustainability assessment framework for evidence-based decision support
Facilitate systematic consideration of the social, economic, and environmental costs
and benefits of EU policy measures based on life cycle thinking
Support the development of new paths of growth focusing on a wider concept of
green economy
Boost the economic value of ecosystem services in a context of integrated and
efficient management of natural resources
Adopt a spatially resolved approach to sustainability assessment
Increase the robustness and consistency of integrated sustainability assessment
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Product environmental footprint
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Link with international targets
(and planetary boundaries)
PRODUCT and TERRITORIAL POLICIESLca-based ecoinnovation for the product/sector
Link with domestic/ EU targets
Extraction of raw material
End of life Use phaseManufacturing 1
Manufacturing 2
End of life Use phase
Green Chemistry - use phase but also supply chain- Ecotoxicity and human toxicity but also other impacts
Integrated and life cycle based approach to chemical assessment: example of a pesticide
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Application on the field
Fate in the environment
Assessment of ecological and human health impacts:
• Through evaluative scenarios
• Or increasingly accounting for spatial differentiation
What about:
• other life cycle stages
of pesticide? E.g.
production?
• other impact
categories other than
toxicity related ones?
WHAT IS THE CHEMICAL FOOTPRINT?In theory, two approaches to chemical footprint may be possible:
1. Assessing the intensity of chemical pressure, in terms of release in the
environment of chemicals, economic sector of use, typology of releases (point
source or diffuse) and potential harm to the environment in a life cycle
perspective
2. Linking the release in the environment with the carrying capacity of the system
(ecological risk assessment, vulnerability analysis, Eco epidemiology).
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WHAT DOES IMPLY A LIFE CYCLE BASED APPROACH?
Chemical profile of emission over the life cycle of a
product
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• The masses of chemicals releasedduring each phase of product lifecycle, from raw material extractionto end of life are taken into accountin the Life Cycle Inventory.
• Using Multimedia fate modelssuch as box models (e.g USEtox) orspatially resolved models (eg.MAPPE) in order to calculate fatefactors in different compartments
• Trough the Life Cycle ImpactAssessment phase, fate factors foreach chemical are multiplied by acharacterisation factors derivedfrom the chosen impact assessmentmodel.
Inventory for Europe (27+3) – year 2010
Airborne emissions
• substances in E-PRTR • NMVOC breakdown
Waterborne emissions
• industrial releases of HM and organics• Urban emission of HM and organics, based on
presence/absence WWTP
Pesticide (and pharmaceutical) emissions
Active ingredients (AI) breakdown
Soilborne emissions
• E-PRTR for industrial releases (HM, POPs)• HM emission from sludge and manure
Chemical profile of emission related to EU 27 production and consumption
Production base vs consumption based approach
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Emission*
Fate*
Effect factors=
Characterisationfactors
Updates ongoing
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Building global inventories
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Extending coverage of substances and completeness of EU 27+3 inventory
Testing different extrapolation strategies for calculating world emission factors
Cucurachi S., Sala S., Laurent A., Heijungs R. (2014) Building and characterizing regional and global emission inventories of toxic pollutants. Environmental Science & Technology, 48 (10), pp 5674–5682
Inventories outside EU
US
US-EPA, 2010
Biggest coverage in
terms of number of
substances
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Canada
Environment Canada,
2010
Pollutant releases
(to air,water and soil),
disposals and transfers
for recycling
Australia
AG-DEH, 2010
Inventory covering
mostly metals
No pesticides
Japan
NITE, 2010
Included the percentage
of facilities that
reported emissions
No CAS number
Chemical footprint and green chemistry?
Secchi M., Castellani V., Collina E., Mirabella N., Sala S. (2016) Assessing eco-innovations in green chemistry: LCA of a cosmetic product with a bio-based
ingredient. Journal of cleaner production, 129: 269-281, doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.07315
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Alleged ecoinnovation/ green chemistry options may lead to additional environmental burden if the perspective is on the substitution of the single substance and not a thorough asssessment, including chemical-related, of the overall processing
dimethicone+caprylic/capric triglyceride replaced by palmitic/stearic triglyc. (from lampante)+C17-21 alkane
dimethicone+caprylic/capric triglyc. replaced by 2 preformulated ingr.+palmitic/stearic triglyc.
Innovation II + sell of soaps as by-product + substitution of KOH with NaOH
Key challenges :
Castellani V. Lorenzo B, Sala S (2016) Hotspots analysis and critical interpretation of food life cycle assessment studies for selecting eco-innovation options and for policy support Journal of Cleaner Production, doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.05.078
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• Unmapped flows• Groups of
chemicals (dioxins, PAHs, PCB’s, etc)
• Metals
Ongoing scientific discussion related to chemical footprint
• Metrics for the boundary?
• Boundaries for toxicity/biodiversity/ecosystem services?
• Availability of data for >100.000 chemicals
• Role of mixture toxicity modeling
• Composite indicators? Accounting for different ecosystem’s vulnerabilities
• Bottom-up boundaries vs global boundaries - Global boundary forfreshwater = Σ Bw1+Bw2+….+Bwn ?
• Spatial resolution of the boundary different for compartment of the emission and for clusters of chemicals ?
• Reconciliating/ complement Risk assessment
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How to set science-based tresholds
SSD‐based biodiversity index.
Sala S., Monti G., Sonia M., Vighi M., (2012). SSD‐based rating system for the classification of pesticide risk on biodiversity. Ecotoxicology. 21:1050‐1062
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Vulnerability analysisIppolito A., Sala S., Faber J.H., Vighi M, 2010. Ecological vulnerability analysis: a river basin case study. Science of the Total Environment 408(18):3880‐3890Schafer R.B. et al (2012). Thresholds for the effects of pesticides on invertebrate communities and Leaf breakdown in stream ecosystems. Environmental Science and Technology, 46:5134‐5142
Thresholds based on Species Sensitivity Distribution (SSD) extrapolation
Thresholds based on Ecoepydemiology, Trait‐based ERA and Vulnerability assessment
Position of key species along the SSD distribution curve?
Ecological response and adaptation under multiple chemical and not chemical’s stressors?
Vulnerability analysiscomparing contaminated and reference/natural site (e.g. on two rivers contaminated and reference site), highlighting the relative importance a number of single stressors and considering spatial differentiation of the impacts (Ippolito et al 2010)
Trait based ERAThresholds for effect of pesticide on macroinvertebrates andvleaf breakdown trough meta‐analysis of field study (Schafer et al 2012) and applying the trait‐based SPEAR indicator
(Liess et al 2008)
Sala S., Marinov D., Pennington D. (2011). Spatial differentiation of chemical removal rates from air in Life Cycle Impact Assessment. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. 16(8):748‐760
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Scale ofassessment ofthe boundarycould be set for clusters ofchemicals, identified bykey physicalchemicalparametersand persistence
Global vs localrelevance
Input for discussion
• Increasing robustness in emission
inventories
• Improving impact assessment
• Complementarity with risk assessment
• Fostering definition of science-based and
related policy- based boundaries for
chemicals
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