Bottom‐Up Life‐Cycle:Assessment of Product Consumption in Belgium

Bart Jansen and Karine Thollier

Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2006, vol. 10, issue 3, 41-55

Abstract: The present study shows the results and methodology applied to the study of the identification of priority product categories for Belgian product and environmental policy. The main goal of the study was to gather insight into the consumption of products in Belgium and their related life‐cycle environmental impacts. The conclusions of this project on the product categories with major environmental contributions can be used to start up working groups involving stakeholders and initiate detailed product studies on the impact reduction potential that could be achieved by means of implementing product policy measures. Several ways of assessing product category environmental impacts and the effects of policy measures have been developed; ‘bottom‐up’ or ‘market‐life‐cycle assessment’ is one of these, and we tried this approach for the situation in Belgium. Simplified life‐cycle assessment (LCA) studies were conducted for representative average products within each function‐based product category and the results were multiplied with market statistics. Using this approach, we found that building construction, building occupancy, and personal transport are among the major categories for Belgium. The major drawbacks of this approach are the system‐level limitations and the existence of a broad spectrum of nonharmonized methods and datasets from which a sound preliminary selection had to be made. Consequently, the retrieval and selection of data was very time consuming and due to this we had to accept some major limitations in the study design. Nevertheless, the study has contributed to the development of a methodology for market‐LCA and elements that can be picked up in currently ongoing and future work. The study concludes that to improve the feasibility and acceptance of this type of study there is a need for the development of a harmonized methodology on market‐LCA, policy‐relevant impact indicators as well as a harmonized and stakeholder‐agreed‐upon LCA databases.

Date: 2006
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