I wish to know other point of view regarding the PEF, Product Environmental Footprint, and its applicability in companies. Off course, when PEF will be more than a "pilot project" or when the study phase will be finished, this could be another tool that could be quite easily applied for companies too, but my doubt is: PEF will be simply another environmental accounting system to be added to those already present? (like green label, EMAS, EPD, organic certification, environmental management tools, and so on...finally all the ways to comunicate to the market the link between products and environment). If this it's true, PEF, from my point of view, is nothing new, maybe it is more robust, clear, correct, complete, ot whatever you want....but from the consumers point of view.... it is just another tools that must explained...by highlighting the differences between all the other. In my opinion, companies, and the market, need "lean" management tools in order to obtain 2 goals: internally improve the process by finding the hot spots to be improved and externally comunicate all the efforts spent for a better environmental performance. Off course, already exist some practical tool to reach these objectives (LCA, green label, and so on)....but, in my opinion, there's still confusion because there are too many tools around a single topic
I wonder: PEF, what do you think about it? It could reach the objectives above mentionedin practice? Personally....I wonder if another tool quite close to a label could be helpfull...
Thanks to everyone who'll spend time to answer.
Luca Chiusano
I like the idea, particularly in the manufacturing sector, where your product is going to be purchased by consumers. For instance: take solar panels.. Your factory where you assemble the panels could be green, lean, LEED, have an EMS program etc. but that doesn't tell consumers where you sourced your components and what impact each of the components has environmentally. I think it might help even the playing field in some respects for responsible manufacturing. It's like knowing where your produce is being grown. You the consumer has a better understanding of where that fruit, or coffee came from and decide what's best for you. You might like the organic coffee from Kenya, or South Korean solar panels..... I might prefer the free trade Guatemalan, and decide that the USA made panels cost more to purchase but have a better environmental footprint because I don't need to have them shipped half way around the world.
Dear Luca,
my view is that PEF is a great tool that companies and organizations may use to gain awareness about the environmental impacts of products, but also services and policies.
Going back to the case of a "physical" products being assessed, examples of situation in which PEF plays a big role is within the decision making on green procurement (where your product components are being grown and what is their impacts, as per mentioned by Peter above).
On top of that, you can easily guess that PEF can be used as a decision support tool for eco-design applications, as it allows the comparison of different product configurations (e.g., in terms of raw material selection) and allows you to see the environmental impacts for each of them.
However, the EU Guidance report for the implementation of the EU PEF (see link below) pointed out some drawbacks on PEF analyses at their current state.
In fact, there are some issues about the consistency of PEF studies applied to different products delivering the same function, as you have to make sure that the analyses have been done by considering the same assumptions, measurements and calculations procedure, in order for the results to be claimed comparable.
Also the relevance of the life-cycle stages, processes and impacts being assessed might be questioned sometimes.
On trying to solve these issues, research & policy makers are right now aiming at defining Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR).
Things I discussed here and much more can be found in the EU Guidance report I posted!
Very best regards
Ilaria
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/smgp/pdf/Guidance_products.pdf
Well, thnaks fot your answer. This morning I was in a meeting on this topic and I received the confirms on my ideas on it. At the moment there's a great "work in progress"....in all the directions. In this moment it's quite difficult to identify the best tool in order to assess envir impacts of my wine, obtain data that can be comunicate outside in the market and to provide me the element for a future eco-design and improvement of my process (or supply chain, end-of-life, etc.).
And there's the need to have ONLY one tool....and not a serie of (Ecolabel, Emas, EDP, PEF, ISO, etc., etc., etc,). If there's only one tool, or if there's a sufficient level of organization around environmental accounting systems....there could be the conditions of produce properly and comunicate to consumer properly...our improved processes and products.
At the moment....it seems that we're far from this scenario...
And I wonder if these tools are really helpfull for it.
Luca
In summary, my view of the PEF is a practical one - we have struggled to expand the commercial scale of product carbon footprinting over the past few years and LCA is not a mainstream activity either. Why would we expect the PEF methodology to be more attractive, given the complexity of so many indicators?
In terms of wine, we have worked with a number of wine companies around the world (Portugal, South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, France) regarding carbon footprinting (and soon hopefully water too). One of the outputs of this has been a tool promoted by SA Fruit and Wine http://www.climatefruitandwine.co.za/ and we developed tools with partners on individual projects too.
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