The life cycle indicators project may represent an ideal framework for testing the potential benefit associated to product policies, including ensuring that environmental burdens do not shift from a life cycle stage to another or from one impact category to another. More specifically, in relation to a wide range of product policies, in Figure 82, we report an overview of the possible synergies between different thematic BoPs and existing/future product policies.
Figure 82. Basic overview of the potential synergies between the different thematic Basket of products indicators and existing/future product policies.
Concerning the links between the Consumer Footprint indicator and the existing product policies, the Consumer Footprint could be seen as a baseline scenario, reflecting average EU consumption, on which to test: i) benefits associated to improved products (e.g. an Ecolabel product or a product with a high energy class) against the burden of the overall consumption, and ii) benefits associated to the introduction of specific criteria (e.g. GPP criteria).
Regarding possible future policies, the link with the Environmental Footprint (both product and organisation) (EC, 2013a) is related to both the Consumption Footprint, which represents the basis for calculating normalisation factors, as well with the Consumer Footprint, which could be used to test scenarios in which PEF products are assessed. The current models in the Consumer Footprint are not fully aligned with PEF modelling, as the project has run in parallel with the PEF pilot phase 2013-2018.
Regarding existing product policies such as the Communication on Resource Efficiency Opportunities in the Building Sector (EC, 2014c) and the EF, again the Consumer Footprint indicators may have several roles: testing assumption and criteria towards more sustainable products; creating a basket of PEF products; assessing products within their average EU systems (in terms of infrastructure, manufacturing etc.).
10 Conclusion and outlook
This study has proposed the implementation of different LCA-based approaches to estimate environmental pressures and impacts due to EU consumption. The assessment has been performed at different scales: entire EU, 28 Member States, sector and product, and individual citizens. Namely, two indicators have been assessed along this report:
- the Consumption Footprint, tracking the overall environmental impacts of consumption in the EU (taking into account both the burdens associated with domestic activities and trade);
- the Consumer Footprint, assessing the environmental impacts of household consumption in EU.
Along the study, different accounting perspectives (respectively domestic, consumption- based top-down and consumption-based bottom-up) have been implemented, either in combination to each other or as a matter of comparison for evaluating the robustness of results and subsequent conclusions. The different approaches undertaken have led to several key converging results with respect to the environmental impacts of consumption in the EU:
— An absolute decoupling of environmental impacts from economic growth is observed in the period 2000-2014 for both Domestic Footprint and Consumption Footprint. On average, from 2000 to 2014, the total Domestic Footprint decreased by 21%, despite an increase in the GDP of 19%. The extent of decoupling observed for the Consumption Footprint is different depending on the accounting approach adopted, i.e. top-down or bottom-up. Between 2005 and 2014 the GDP increased by 8%, whereas the Consumption Footprint Top-down remained quite stable, and the Consumption Footprint Bottom-up decreased by 23%. Robustness of the data is not the same in the approaches, and differences are present in terms of country coverage, emission and resource coverage, time coverage, reliability of sources;
— In the case of the Consumption Footprint Bottom-up, beneficial to the negative trend are the concomitant reduction of the Domestic Footprint (-19%), the reduction of the Import Footprint Bottom-up (-5%), and the considerable increase of the Export Footprint Bottom-up (+27%) (the so-called “export effect”);
— Within the Consumption Footprint, both the top-down and the bottom-up approaches highlighted an overall predominance of the environmental impacts due to imports compared to exports for almost all the impact categories. This means that a share of the environmental impacts associated with EU consumption are generated outside EU borders and EU can, therefore, be mainly considered a “net importer” of environmental impacts. This is despite the increase in the Export Footprint (+40% and +27% from 2005 to 2014, considering results respectively from the top-down and the bottom-up approaches);
— The impact of import is dominated by “fuels and mineral oils” according to the bottom-up approach. The top-down approach identifies a broader range of contributors depending on the impact category: i) food products (in particular meat) and food- related services ii) basic and intermediate products (in particular basic iron and steel, and rubber and plastic products) and iii) raw materials (fossil, mineral and metal resources). The impact of export is dominated by manufactured products in both approaches, with some exceptions for the bottom-up approach (including fuels and mineral oils, and iron and steel);
— According to the Consumer Footprint by basket of products (BoP), the main drivers of impact from citizens’ apparent consumption of goods and services are meat and dairy products, space heating for housing (especially in cold climate) and the use of private cars, especially diesel ones;
— Looking specifically at the areas of consumption leading the impacts, food appears to be the main driver for impacts on acidification, terrestrial, freshwater and marine
eutrophication, land use and water use in the two approaches undertaken (the bottom- up Consumer Footprint and top-down Household Footprint). In particular, food contributes to more than 70% of the impact on terrestrial and marine eutrophication and on land use for the Consumer Footprint. Yet, the lower contribution of food sector in Household Footprint compared to the Consumer Footprint is observed as a recurrent difference. Fossil resource depletion is driven by housing and mobility in both approaches;
— Based on the Consumer Footprint and Household Footprint the impact of particulate matter is generated mainly by food and secondly by housing, yet with different shares depending on the approach. These two modelling approaches had also diverging results in determining the most contributing sectors for the impact categories human toxicity, non-cancer effects, ecotoxicity and mineral resource use;
— The comparison of different approaches for calculating Consumption Footprint and Consumer Footprint showed that generally top-down approaches are overestimating impacts, which is in line with the fact that they cover more broadly the areas of consumption (e.g. including services). On the contrary, for specific impact categories, additional modelling effort is needed, e.g. for what concern toxicity related impact categories and resource use;
— It is evident that reducing the environmental impacts of production of goods, for example by improving technological efficiency, is not enough to guarantee a reduction in the overall footprint. The use phase plays a central role in the overall environmental burdens exerted by an average EU-citizen, particularly in certain areas of consumption, e.g. for most of the impact categories use phase is responsible of 80% of the impact per year in the BoP Housing and 50% in the BoP Appliances;
— Example of different consumer profiles showed that food consumption is still the main driver of impact in many impact categories, also for people with a semi- vegetarian or vegetarian diet. In the case of a family with two private cars, mobility becomes relevant as well. In case of single persons, housing is second contributor in addition to food;
— A Consumer Footprint tool has been developed based on the results of the different basket of products for enabling the assessment of specific consumer profiles, addressing main differences in consumption patterns (e.g. a diet or housing could be changed);
— When assessing trends in the different areas of consumption over the period 2010- 2015, data show that household consumption per person generally increased from 2010 to 2015, e.g. food consumption increased by 6%, the kilometres travelled by European citizens increased by 10%, etc. This determines an increase of Consumer Footprint, due also to the extension of the geography from EU-27 to EU-28 (and the consequent increase in the population by 1%). BoP Housing is an exception to this trend. The impact in 2015 was around 10% less compared to 2010 for most of the impact categories, mainly driven by a general reduction of energy use in the buildings (especially for space heating);
— A systemic perspective is therefore required to reduce the overall environmental burdens of EU consumption patterns. It should encompass both the production and the consumption sides and, specifically regarding production, it should include both domestic activities and activities taking place outside EU boundaries;
— Regarding the contribution of the different areas of consumption in the EU over key areas of concerns, i.e. “human health” and “ecosystem quality”/“biodiversity”: climate change and particulate matter drive the impacts on human health while climate change, land use and acidification lead to impacts on biodiversity;
— When comparing the impact generated in the EU with the impacts generated globally (global impact references), the impact of the EU spans from about 2%
regarding impact on mineral and metals resource extraction to 63% of ionising radiation for the Domestic Footprint and, on average, from 2% of impact on ozone depletion to 51% of ionising radiation for the Consumption Footprint and the Consumer Footprint;
— Adopting a per-capita perspective in assessing the extent to which Planetary Boundaries are overcome, the environmental impact of the consumption of an average EU citizen is outside the safe operating space for humanity for several impact categories, namely climate change, particulate matter, resource use, human toxicity, photochemical ozone formation and land use. The level to which the thresholds are overcome change in the different modelling approaches. However, there is a clear result that for most of the impact categories the impacts are close to the threshold when not overcome.