Environmental Communication & PEF Flashcards
How many greenwashing sins are there?
7
What is the definition of greenwashing?
The act of misleading consumes regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.
Analyze the greenwashing sins of the starbucks case:
- Thicker plastic
- Use more plastic overall
- “less toxic plastic”
Sins:
- lesser of two evils (all plastic is bad)
- irrelevance (not all materials are even recycled)
- hidden tradeoff (thicker non degradable plastic)
- no proof (no explicit third party source given)
What should all labels and declaration be?
- Be accurate, verifiable, relevant not misleading
- Not create barriers to trade
- Be based on scientific methods
- Follow transparent rules
- Consider all relevant aspects of a product’s Life Cycle
- Support environmental innovation
- Limit bureaucracy to conformance with program rules
- Use participation of stakeholders
- Result in transparent claims
What are type II claims?
X Self-declared claims X:
- Established by the manufacturer
- Based on single environmental criteria
- No verification
- No threshold criteria
What are type I labels?
Ecolabels:
- Life Cycle based thinking
- Points to best alternative in a product category
- Threshold criteria
- Third party verified
- Transparency
What are type III labels:
Environmental Product Declaration (EPD):
- Life Cycle Assessment based
- Analogy: Nutritional facts
- Third party verified
- Register trademark
What is the last type of labeling?
Type ?: Footprint Communication
- Life Cycle Based
- Usually based on a single environmental aspect (area of concern)
- Third party verified
- Ex. carbon footprint, water scarcity footprint
What are environmental labels similar to type I?
FSC, Energy Stare, Marine Stewardship Council:
- Indicates the environmental preference in a product category
- Focus on a specific impact
- Threshold criteria
- Third party verification
What are GEN members?
Have attained the status of “Type I” this means:
- Ecolabelling programs are voluntary
- Their standards address multiple environmental criteria over the life cycle of a product or service
- standards are public and transparent
- Ecolabels are awarded using independent third-party verification
What is the main difference between environmental label and declaration?
Label: “OK” according to a defined criteria
Declared: Presented information is comparable and transparent
What are the system boundaries for a recycled material? What are the benefits?
There are two life cycle considers: pre and post recycling
Benefits:
- Promotes product systems that use recycled materials
- Promotes products that may be are recycled
- Possible to collect verifiable data
- Possible to explain
What type of LCA (attributional vs consequential) do all EPDs use?
Attributional
What is a PCR?
Product Category Rules (PCRs): have been developed to ensure consistency in LCA calculation methods, make it easier to compare EPDs
It must be prepared, reviewed, and approved as a part of an open and participatory consultation process
What is an example of an EPD?
Azur trains from STM
- PCR used? (divides it into main groups)
- Functional unit used? (how many people over how long the train will move them)
- Additional aspects to trains?
How can you communicate a footprint?
You can communicate your footprint as one value as long as you find a name for it (except environmental footprint)
Functional unit vs declared unit
Functional unit: quantified performance of a product system for use as a reference unit
Declared unit: quantity of a product for use as a reference unit in a footprint communication based on LCA for the expression of environmental information in footprint information modules
What does the name of the footprint need to address?
- accurately reflect the area of concern
- be aligned to the scope of the supporting footprint study
- not be misleading
What information does the footprint need to include?
- A clear indication of the area of concern addressed
- The functional unit or declared unit to which the footprint communication refers
- Identification of the life cycle stages that are covered by the footprint communication
- An unambiguous indication on how to access the supporting info
What are the PEF and OEF?
PEF: product environmental footprint
OEF: organizational environmental footprint
- LCA based standards
- Similar to Type III
Goals: - Strengthen EU market for green alternatives
- Ensure impacts are assessed
What does PEFCR provide? (related to PEF)
Most relevant:
- impact category
- life cycle stages
- processes
- elementary flows
The environmental profile of the average product sold in EU
List of mandatory company specific data
List of default datasets to be used
Classes of environmental performance
What is the procedure to identify the most relevant impact categories?
- Primary data required
- Based on normalized and weighted results
- Minimum 3 impact categories
- Cumulative total of at least 80% of total
What is the procedure to identify the most relevant life cycle stages?
- Primary data required
- Cumulative contribution of at least 80% of any of the most relevant impact categories identified
- Default stages are:
- raw materials acquisition + pre-processing
- production of main product
- distribution and storage
- use
- end of life
What are the main lessons learned from communication pilot phase from PEF?
- Traffic light and performance scales are easy to understand
- Comparisons with everyday situations appreciated
- Negative statements are powerful
What are the ultimate questions when it comes to communicating LCA info to the public?
Will the population really:
- Understand the information provided
- Care about this information
- Change their decision based on the environmental performance
What are the 7 greenwashing sins?
- hidden tradeoff
- irrelevance
- no proof
- fibbing
5, vagueness - lesser of two evils
- fake labels
