LCA Links!

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on May 20th, 2010, joined academic, business, government and environmental leaders in announcing the formation of the first-in-the-nation, non-profit Green Products Innovation Institute (GPII).  The Institute will be headquartered in San Francisco, California and dedicated to developing comprehensive chemical standards for every day products that are safe and healthy for humans and the environment.

Companies will be able to come to the GPII to get advice on how to “green” their products are and how to improve them. It is a combination of third party C2C certification based on the MBDC method which has now been released to the public domain.  The Governor backs it along with companies such as Method, Aveda, Wal-Mart, Herman Miller, Google (YouTube) and Shaw Carpets. Mike Volkema – Chairman of the Board, Herman Miller spoke at the announcement and said 100% of its products will be certified C2C.

The full press release can be found HERE

The Singapore Environment Council (SEC) and the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) inked an agreement to launch Singapore’s and South East Asia’s first carbon label.

This Carbon Label is a Singapore initiative to support the country’s transition to a recognised low carbon economy by measuring and communicating the carbon content of the products and services we consume and produce, raising the carbon consciousness of governments, businesses and consumers. The carbon label in quantifying and declaring the carbon content is an advancement of the Singapore Green Label.

With a formal launch planned for the fourth quarter of 2010, the Singapore Carbon Label will provide a unique set of tools to evaluate, quantify and report for the first time on the carbon footprint of products and services based on rigorous lifecycle analysis, from raw materials to production, from distribution to use.

The principal aims of the Singapore Carbon Label are to differentiate Singapore products and services and provide a new, compelling source of competitive advantage to industry and the economy. A “Singapore solution”, the label builds on international standards and best practices, including the UK’s PAS 2050 and the draft standard ISO 14067. The scheme partners will make available a stringent methodology and standards alongside ready-made tools that will deliver both immediate impacts and longer term emissions reductions for businesses. This will help local enterprises to boost the competitiveness of Singapore’s exports globally.

For more information visit the SEC website: http://www.sec.org.sg/

Press release – March 3, 2010

Bridgestone’s takes a global view of the environmental impact of tires – the so called “cradle to grave” approach – covering the whole product life cycle from raw materials, production and distribution to tyre usage and end-of-life disposal.

All research, and particularly the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study conducted by the European Tyre and Rubber Manufacturers’ Association, shows that the tire usage phase has the largest impact on the environment. While Bridgestone is taking important steps to minimize environmental impact in all tyre life stages (documented in the Bridgestone Europe “Environmental Commitment and Performance” brochure and elsewhere), the company is currently engaged in a major development programme in the tire usage stage.

Tire manufacturers working within the BLIC (European Association of the Rubber Industry) carried out a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in 2000/2001 for a standard size passenger car tire (195/65 R15, speed index H, summer) representative of the European market. The referenced tire LCA study clearly showed that the impact of tires on the environment and human health is mostly due to fuel consumption, and thus to rolling resistance and not to the tire production phase or end-of-life collection and management.

The press release can be found here:

http://www.bridgestone.eu/press/press-releases/all/2010/safety-or-environmental-benefits

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/business/energy-environment/30led.html

The results show that over the entire life cycle service of the bulb — from manufacturing to disposal — the energy used for incandescent bulbs is almost five times that used for compact fluorescents and LED lamps.

The executive summary of the study can be found on OSRAM’s website here: http://www.osram-os.com/osram_os/EN/About_Us/We_shape_the_future_of_light/Our_obligation/LED_life-cycle_assessment/OSRAM_LED_LCA_Summary_November_2009.pdf

A recent study commissioned by the USDA shows dramatic decrease in fossil energy associated with the production of biodiesel – a 3.2 ratio of biodiesel to fossil energy. In other words, biodiesel yields 3.2 units of energy for every unit of fossil energy consumed over its life-cycle, whereas 1998 figures yielded 0.84 units of biodiesel energy per unit of fossil energy consumed.

See the study on the National BioDiesel Board website:  http://www.biodiesel.org/resources/reportsdatabase/reports/gen/20090914_gen-396.pdf

The referenced 1998 LCA by Sheehan et al. can be found on US DOE NREL website here: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24089.pdf