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Swiss ecological scarcity method

Update 2006

The update of the life cycle impact assessment method Swiss ecological scarcity (eco-points 2006) was finalized in 2008. With the help of the project management and experts from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and members of the Swiss association of environmentally conscious business (öbu), ESU-services was able to substantially improve the applicability and flexibility of the methodological concept and to update the eco-factors to the actual state of the environment and environmental legislation. Furthermore, the method was extended to key environmental impacts such as water scarcity. The ecological scarcity method was the first end-point impact assessment method including water footprint.

The actual publication describes the derivation of eco-factors taking into account actual emissions and resource uses on one hand as well as Swiss political goals and internationally agreed emission targets supported by Switzerland on the other.

ESU-services was contracted to establish the next update with the reference year 2011, which is supposed to be published in 2013.

Commissioner: Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN)

Contact: Rolf Frischknecht

Methodological approach

The ecological scarcity method weights environmental impacts - pollutant emissions and resource consumption - by applying "eco-factors". The eco-factor of a substance is derived from environmental law or corresponding political targets. The more the current level of emissions or consumption of resources exceeds the environmental protection target set, the greater the eco-factor becomes, expressed in eco-points (EP). An eco-factor is essentially derived from three elements (in accordance with ISO Standard 14044): characterisation, normalisation and weighting.

Characterisation captures the relative harmfulness of a pollutant emission or resource extraction vis-à-vis a reference substance within a given impact category (global warming potential, acidification potential, radioactivity etc.). Normalisation quantifies the contribution of a unit of pollutant or resource use to the total current load/pressure in a region (in this case the whole of Switzerland) per year.Weighting expresses the relationship between the current pollutant emission or resource consumption (current flow) and the politically deterimed emission or consumption target (critical flow).

The eco-factors established with this approach are then multiplied with the cumulative emissions and resource uses calculated in the life cycle inventory analysis. The method may be used for product comparisons, for process and product improvements, for the assessment of total environmental impacts of production sites or of the final consumption in a country.

Applications in Switzerland

The method is used in the Biofuels Life Cycle Assessment Ordinance and has first been used in an LCA of several biofuel options in Switzerland. A recent article in Science referred to this application as a new ground breaking option. Based on this application the verification procedure for tax exemption of biofuels has been developed.

Most LCA practitioners in Switzerland use the ecological scacrity method in at least some of their studies. The following organisations published LCAs using the ecological scarcity method:

  • agroscope (environmental report)
  • Carbotech (biomaterials)
  • Doka life cycle assessment (eco-factors noise)
  • Gammarus (restaurant)
  • E2 Management Consulting AG (key figures for companies)
  • EMPA (Agrofuels, coffee capsules)
  • ESU-services Ltd. (food production and consumption, energy systems)
  • ETH Zürich (vegetables)
  • INFRAS (environmental report)
  • myClimate (consumer goods)
  • Paul Scherrer Institut - PSI (electric mobility)
  • sinum (financial services)

Eco-factors are used in case studies for a wide range of different customers such as associations, authorities, NGO's and companies such as:

  • Swiss Federal Offices, e.g. for roads, for the environment, of civil aviation, for buildings and logistics, for energy and for agriculture (FEDRO, FOEN, FOCA, FOBL, OFEN, FOAG)
  • National organizations such as e.g. Koordinationskonferenz der Bau- und Liegenschaftsorgane der öffentlichen Bauherren (KBOB) and eco-bau
  • City administrations from Zurich, Basle, Luzerne, etc..
  • Companies such as Baer, Coop, CS, ewz, Geberit, Knecht und Müller, McDonalds, Migros, Post, Raiffeisen, SBB, UBS
  • NGO's such as WWF Switzerland, Climatop, VUE

In a recent study the total environmental impacts of Swiss consumption and production was quantified for the first time using the ecological scarcity method 2006.

International applications

There is a rising international interest in the application and development of the ecological scarcity approach. ESU-services developed ecological scarcity Japan in the framework of a biofuels research programme. Adaptations to other countries such as Jordan are available too.

A German research institute recommended the ecological scarcity method as a basis for a national life cycle impact assessment method.

Volkswagen and DaimlerCrysler use this approach in the environmental reporting of their production facilities.

An LCA case study on beverage cups made from fossil and bio-plastics to be used during the EURO 2008 was comissioned by a group of cities and national authorities from Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

The European research institute DG-JRC in Ispra recommends the ecological scarcity approach for the assessment of water use and radioactive emissions as mid-point indicators in LCIA. The study has been carried out by leading European LCIA experts.

Publications

The following documents are available for download:

All files are provided without liability.

  • Frischknecht, R., Steiner, R., Jungbluth, N. 2009: The Ecological Scarcity Method - Eco-Factors 2006: A method for impact assessment in LCA. Umwelt-Wissen Nr. 0906. Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), Bern.
  • Frischknecht, R., Steiner, R., Jungbluth, N. 2009: Methode der ökologischen Knappheit - Ökofaktoren 2006. Methode für die Wirkungsabschätzung in Ökobilanzen. Umwelt-Wissen Nr. 0906. Bundesamt für Umwelt (BAFU), Bern.
  • Frischknecht R., Jungbluth N. and Pfister S. 2009: UBP-Bewertung für den Wasserbedarf von Treibstoffen. ESU-services, Uster, im Auftrag des Bundesamtes für Umwelt (BAFU), Bern, CH.
  • Frischknecht, R., Steiner, R., Jungbluth, N. 2008: Methode der ökologischen Knappheit - Ökofaktoren 2006. Öbu SR No. 28/2008, Bundesamt für Umwelt (BAFU), ÖBU Schweizerische Vereinigung für ökologisch bewusste Unternehmungsführung, Zürich und Bern.