2.2. Costos de Calidad
2.2.3. Establecimiento de un Sistema de Costos de Calidad
2.2.3.1. Implementación de un Sistema de Costos de Calidad
Deciding on the significance of relative impacts often involves a value judgement. Furthermore, excellent performance with regard to one indicator may lead to poor performance in another indicator. For example, intensification of livestock production might lead to a
reduction in GHG emissions because of the shorter lifetime of the livestock.b However, it is easy to imagine that such intensification might have a negative effect on animal welfare. These trade-offs across environmental impact
categories are quite common in the food, feed and drink products (Table 25).
a
Raimbault M., Humbert S. (2011) ISO considers potential standard on water footprint ISO [Online accessed 15-5-2011]
http://www.iso.org/iso/isofocusplus_bonus_water-footprint
b
Sonesson U., Cederberg C., Berglund M. (2009) Greenhouse gas emissions in beef production Klimatmärkning
Table 25: Examples of trade-offs across impact categories Practice Prod- uct Improve ment Deterioration / Risk Intensi- fication Beef GHG, land-use Animal welfare, biodiversity, deforestation (from soy meal)
Intensi- fication Crops Land- use Eutrophication, water-use, GHG Use of GMOs Fish Waste from aqua- culture Risks around GMOs Use of recycled paper for pack- aging Gene ral Food waste Risk of contamination by hazardous substances (inks from newspapers) Canning for conserv- ation Veget ables Food waste
Energy use for production / transport / recycling of cans
Source: Oakdene Hollins
A composite label such as the EU Ecolabel will need to aggregate the performance results of the individual impact categories into a single result. There is no clear guidance on how to do this in the examined literature. In the context of an LCA, the ISO standard 14044:26 advises against weighting to combine different impacts and to arrive at single indicator for
environmental performance. In the similar context of environmental labelling (ISO
14024:2009), the only guidance given on how to solve this issue, is as followsc:
“Regardless, the study shall show that the selection of product environmental criteria will not lead to the transfer of impacts from one stage of the lifecycle to another or from one medium to another without a net gain of environmental benefit.”
While this advice highlights the issue of trade- offs both between lifecycle stages and across environmental impact categories, it does not solve the problem of how to determine the “net
c
ISO (2001) Environmental labels and declarations Type I environmental labelling Principles and procedures (ISO 14024:1999) Edition:2001-02-01 Article 6.4.1
gain of environmental benefit” as this is not defined.
To solve this problem, three approaches are currently available:
Defining a hierarchy of environmental, ethical and social impacts or benefits.
Employing a model linking individual impact categories to so-called end-point categories.
Identifying relevant trade-off situations and evaluating them separately.
Most labels are based on transparent principles which allow them to develop a hierarchy of environmental impacts or benefits and thus to come to a decision in a trade-off situation. For example, the basic principles of organic agriculture are concerned with the use of agricultural processes that are based on
ecological systems and use resources internal to the system, thus restricting the need for
external inputs, especially the use of chemically synthesised substances.a These principles focus on the input side of agriculture and not on any polluting outputs, and determine a hierarchy which puts restrictions on external inputs ahead of outputs e.g. reductions of pollutants.
The case of the trade-off around flame weeding can be used as an example: Flame weeding is preferable to the use of herbicides in organic agriculture. However, the trade-off involved in avoiding the input of external substances is a higher contribution to abiotic depletion and emission of GHGs. As the application of
herbicides clearly violates the higher principle of limiting the addition of chemically synthesised inputs, this trade-off is regarded as acceptable. The EU Ecolabel Regulation provides no comparable principles that would allow the ranking of different environmental, ethical or social impacts.
Alternatively, it would be possible to use models to link the various environmental impacts, e.g. global warming, acidification or eutrophication, to so-called ‘end-point categories’ such as the impacts on humans or ecosystems. A well-
a
Council Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 on organic production and labelling of organic products
developed system is ReCiPeb, which is a further development of the Eco-indicator 95 and its successor the Eco-indicator 99. Aimed at optimising internal processes of operations, this system aspires to connect ca.18 different environmental impact categories (mid-point level) to just three end-point impacts: human health, ecosystems damage and resource scarcity. Even though some important impacts (e.g. water use) cannot yet be included due to a lack of reliable methodology to include site specific factors, such models make an attempt to actually overcome the issue of trade-offs across environmental issues. Currently, work on developing an ecological footprint (e.g. French Grenellec) is based on such a model.
These tools currently seem most promising in dealing with the problem of aggregating environmental impacts and arriving at a single environmental score. However, besides the methodological difficulties that remain, these methods are currently not applicable in the context of the EU Ecolabel due to the complexity of the evaluation leading to considerable cost and requirement for expertise.
A different solution would be to identify the relevant trade-offs and then develop an individual bespoke solution for each one. As there are many trade-offs within and between environmental impact categories, this would likely be a lengthy and resource intensive process. A candidate for such a case-by-case approach would be the use of airfreight as means of transport, which involves trading off potential social and economic advantages for developing countries with the associated additional emissions of greenhouse gases. Table 26 gives three alternative solutions adopted by three food labels.
b See http://www.lcia-recipe.net
c
General Commission for Sustainable Development Display of the environmental characteristics of products [Online acceeed 17-5-2011] http://www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/LPS39EN.pdf
Table 26: Solutions for dealing with air freight
Label Solution
BioSuisse (organic)a
Airfreight prohibited (very strong focus of the label on Swiss produce)
Soil Association (organic)b
Airfreight allowed but needs to be documented during the assessment
Klimatmärkning (organic & non- organic)c
No explicit prohibition of airfreight, but CO2 limits based on the Human Development Index (HDI) of the supplying country. While it is effectively prohibited for developed countries, it is allowed for countries with a low HDI
Source: Oakdene Hollins
The diversity in solutions reflects the differences in values and principles underlying these
labelling organisations. Additionally, it reflects the history of the process of developing criteria, with Klimatmärkning being the most recent and most differentiated solution to this problem. As has been shown, trade-offs pose substantial problems in the development of reliable criteria, which can be aggregated to produce a
meaningful overall result. Until the development of an accepted and feasible methodology for an ecological footprint, the most promising approach for the EU Ecolabel is to deal with trade-offs on a case-by-case basis. The main challenge will be to arrive at a joint European position on the values involved in each of the judgements.
a
Bio Suisse (2011) Summary of the Bio Suisse Standards”, version 1.1.2011 [Online accessed 20-4-2011] http://www.bio-
suisse.ch/media/en/pdf2011/a_eng_information_note_summary_of_bio _suisse_standards_2011.pdf
b
Soil Association (2007) Should the Soil Association tackle the environmental impact of air freight in its organic standards; Soil Association (2011) Air Freight: A Review of the Soil Association’s Position
c
Klimatmärkning för Mat (2010) Criteria for Mitigation of Climate Impact from Food Production and Distribution Klimatmärkning