Arnold Tukker

New business for old Europe : product-service development, competitiveness and sustainability

Foreword Bas de Leeuw, UNEP DTIE, France Part I: Product-services: The context 1. Introduction Arnold Tukker, TNO, The Netherlands Part II: Fundamentals concerning competitiveness and sustainability 2. Product-services: A specific value proposition Arnold Tukker and Christiaan van den Berg, TNO, The Netherlands, and Ursula Tischner, econcept, Germany 3. Product-services and competitiveness Arnold Tukker and Christiaan van den Berg, TNO, The Netherlands 4. Product-services and sustainability Arnold Tukker, TNO, The Netherlands, and Ursula Tischner and Martijn Verkuijl, econcept, Germany Part III: Product-service development 5. The toolbox for product-service development Martijn Verkuijl and Ursula Tischner, econcept, Germany, and Arnold Tukker, TNO, The Netherlands Part IV: Potential for product-services in five need areas 6. Introduction to the need area-specific chapters Arnold Tukker, TNO, The Netherlands 7. Need area 1: Base materials Rui Fraz 8. Need area 2: Information and communication technologies Martin Charter, Graham Adams and Tom Clark, Centre for Sustainable Design, UK 9. Need area 3: Offices Martijn Verkuijl and Ursula Tischner, econcept, Germany 10. Need area 4: Food Erik Tempelman, Peter Joore, Tom van der Horst and Helma Luiten, TNO, The Netherlands 11. Need area 5: Households An Vercalsteren and Theo Geerken, VITO, Belgium Part V: Reflections and conclusions 12. Towards an integrated approach to PSS design Ursula Tischner, econcept, Germany, and Arnold Tukker, TNO, The Netherlands 13. Conclusions Arnold Tukker, TNO, The Netherlands, and Ursula Tischner, econcept, Germany Annex 1: A practical guide for PSS development Ursula Tischner, econcept, Germany, and Arnold Tukker, TNO, The Netherlands Annex 2: tools, alphabetical Martijn Verkuijl and Ursula Tischner, econcept, Germany, and Arnold Tukker, TNO, The Netherlands

System Innovation for Sustainability 1. Perspectives on Radical Changes to Sustainable Consumption and Production

Central to the sustainable production and consumption (SCP) agenda is the need for radical changes not only in the ways we produce but also in the ways we consume. The SCP agenda emerged within the understanding that it is not possible to reach the necessary reductions in environmental impact and resource consumption purely by technical solutions directed at improving the efficiency of production processes and ‘greening’ products. Research demonstrates that aggregate environmental impact continues to rise because of an increasing population and increasing levels of affluence. It was hoped that technological improvements could compensate for increases in these factors. However, to keep within the limits of environmental impact of the year 1990, some commentators argue that a Factor 10, 20 or higher improvement in material and energy efficiency is needed by 2025 (Jensen 1993; Schmidt-Bleek 1995). (Less)

Rare earth elements supply restrictions: market failures, not scarcity, hamper their current use in high-tech applications.

C has recently curtailed the export of rare earth elements (REE). An assessment by the World Trade Organisation at the request of the U.S. and EU published in the spring of 2014 concluded that China is not complying with the principles of free trade. But is China’s export policy the only reason for the West’s problems with access to REE? Not really, and at most only partially, in my opinion. The situation is far more complex. Chinese export restrictions are causing problems for many Western companies that use metals such as neodymium, europium, and dysprosium. Although only used in tiny quantities, these are essential raw materials for high-tech products such as miniaturized speakers in thin smart phones and magnets in electric vehicles and wind turbines. Consequently, the supply restrictions could hamper the transition to low-carbon energy and mobility systems (e.g., ref 1). Using detailed trade data and information about the REE-content of products, we have calculated the worldwide value of products containing REE to be at least 1.5−2 trillion dollars. This is nearly 5% of the global Gross National Product. Around 20% of Japan’s exports, measured by value, contain REE (see Table 1). There is a genuine fear that if high-tech companies in OECD countries were to lose access to REE, they would have to relocate to China or face erosion of their competitive edge: the use of alternative materials usually compromises product quality. All in all, there are huge interests at stake. ■ RARE EARTHS CERTAINLY NOT SCARCE An analysis of how this situation arose produces surprising insights. First, REE are by no means scarce. Reserves are more than 800 times the current annual production of 130 000 tons, while the reserves of most other metals will not last for more than a few decades. Second, until 1995 the United States was the biggest supplier, via the Mountain Pass mine. Only after the mine closed in around 2002 did China gain its near-monopoly position, providing over 95% of global REE supply. Third, China is restricting exports for a reason. Its own high-tech industry is booming and China foresaw that it would need most of its REE production to meet its own requirements by about 2014. And, finally, developing mining and refining capacity for the 40 000−60 000 tons of REE used outside China would have required an investment of just several billion dollars at most, which is a fraction of the annual value of end products made with REE.

Solid Waste and the Circular Economy: A Global Analysis of Waste Treatment and Waste Footprints

Summary Detailed and comprehensive accounts of waste generation and treatment form the quantitative basis of designing and assessing policy instruments for a circular economy (CE). We present a harmonized multiregional solid waste account, covering 48 world regions, 11 types of solid waste, and 12 waste treatment processes for the year 2007. The account is part of the physical layer of EXIOBASE v2, a multiregional supply and use table. EXIOBASE v2 was used to build a waste-input-output model of the world economy to quantify the solid waste footprint of national consumption. The global amount of recorded solid waste generated in 2007 was approximately 3.2 Gt (gigatonnes1), of which 1 Gt was recycled or reused, 0.7 Gt was incinerated, gasified, composted, or used as aggregates, and 1.5 Gt was landfilled. Patterns of waste generation differ across countries, but a significant potential for closing material cycles exists in both high- and low-income countries. The European Union (EU), for example, needs to increase recycling by approximately 100 megatonnes per year (Mt/yr) and reduce landfilling by approximately 35 Mt/yr by 2030 to meet the targets set by the Action Plan for the Circular Economy. Solid waste footprints are strongly coupled with affluence, with income elasticities of around 1.3 for recycled waste, 2.2 for recovery waste, and 1.5 for landfilled waste, respectively. The EXIOBASE v2 solid waste account is based on statistics of recorded waste flows and therefore likely to underestimate actual waste flows.

EXIOBASE 3: Developing a Time Series of Detailed Environmentally Extended Multi‐Regional Input‐Output Tables

Environmentally extended multiregional input-output (EE MRIO) tables have emerged as a key framework to provide a comprehensive description of the global economy and analyze its effects on the environment. Of the available EE MRIO databases, EXIOBASE stands out as a database compatible with the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) with a high sectorial detail matched with multiple social and environmental satellite accounts. In this paper, we present the latest developments realized with EXIOBASE 3-a time series of EE MRIO tables ranging from 1995 to 2011 for 44 countries (28 EU member plus 16 major economies) and five rest of the world regions. EXIOBASE 3 builds upon the previous versions of EXIOBASE by using rectangular supply-use tables (SUTs) in a 163 industry by 200 products classification as the main building locks. In order to capture structural changes, economic developments, as reported by national statistical agencies, were imposed on the available, disaggregated SUTs from EXIOBASE 2. These initial estimates were further refined by incorporating detailed data on energy, agricultural production, resource extraction, and bilateral trade. EXIOBASE 3 inherits the high level of environmental stressor detail from its precursor, with further improvement in the level of detail for resource xtraction. To account for the expansion of the European Union (EU), EXIOBASE 3 was developed with the full EU28 country set (including the new member state Croatia). EXIOBASE 3 provides a unique tool for analyzing the dynamics of environmental pressures of economic activities over time.

Uncertainty in life cycle impact assessment of toxic releases practical experiences - arguments for a reductionalistic approach?

This paper describes the experience with impact assessment of toxic releases in a Substance Flow Analysis (SFA) for PVC in Sweden. For this system, all emissions related to the PVC-chain were inventoried. They have been evaluated making use of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) step from the CMI.-guide, including the new toxicity equivalency factors calculated with the Uniform System for Evaluation of Substances (USES). The application of this method led to the conclusion that I.CA Impact Assessment of toxic releases is still a major bottleneck: the USES-equivalency factors are not to he trusted due to outdated data, inappropriate defaults, etc. in the USES’ substance properties database. Therefore, a second USES-ser of factors was calculated that differed up to factors of 1,000 or more from the old ones. Even these factors probably suffer from unacceptable high structural, in practice not reducible uncertainties. In conclusion, we warn the LCA community not to overestimate the possibility of LCA Impact Assessment to obtain a meaningfull priority setting with regard to toxicity problems. Instead, we propose developing indicator systems for LCIA of toxic releases that genuinely deal with all relevant types of uncertainty: data uncertainty, modelling uncertainty and particularly paradigmatic uncertainty.

Scenarios for a 2 °C world: a trade-linked input–output model with high sector detail

In this study a scenario model is used to examine if foreseen technological developments are capable of reducing CO2 emissions in 2050 to a level consistent with United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreements, which aim at maximizing the temperature rise to 2 °C compared to pre-industrial levels. The model is based on a detailed global environmentally extended supply–use table (EE SUT) for the year 2000, called EXIOBASE. This global EE SUT allows calculating how the final demand in each region drives activities in production sectors, and hence related CO2 emissions, in each region. Using this SUT framework, three scenarios have been constructed for the year 2050. The first is a business-as-usual scenario (BAU), which takes into account population, economic growth, and efficiency improvements. The second is a techno-scenario (TS), adding feasible and probable climate mitigation technologies to the BAU scenario. The third is the towards-2-degrees scenario (2DS), with a demand shift or growth reduction scenario added to the TS to create a 2 °C scenario. The emission results of the three scenarios are roughly in line with outcomes of typical scenarios from integrated assessment models. Our approach indicates that the 2 °C target seems difficult to reach with advanced CO2 emission reduction technologies alone. Policy relevance The overall outlook in this scenario study is not optimistic. We show that CO2 emissions from steel and cement production and air and sea transport will become dominant in 2050. They are difficult to reduce further. Using biofuels in air and sea transport will probably be problematic due to the fact that agricultural production largely will be needed to feed a rising global population and biofuel use for electricity production grows substantially in 2050. It seems that a more pervasive pressure towards emission reduction is required, also influencing the basic fabric of society in terms of types and volumes of energy use, materials use, and transport. Reducing envisaged growth levels, hence reducing global gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, might be one final contribution needed for moving to the 2 °C target, but is not on political agendas now.

Philosophy of science, policy sciences and the basis of decision support with LCA Based on the toxicity controversy in Sweden and the Netherlands

Current LCA implicitly assumes that a single rational truth can be found. Mainstream policy sciences has taken a different starting point when analysing decision making in complex and controversial societal debates for already several decades. In such debates, in general, more than one reasonable conceptualisation or ‘framing’ of the problem is at stake which forms the core of the controversy. This paper analyses the Dutch chlorine debate and the Swedish PVC debate and shows that (three) frames also play a role in toxicity controversies: the risk assessment frame, the strict control frame, and the precautionary frame. The latter frame, adhered to by the environmentalists, seeks to judge substances mainly on their inherent safety. The cases show that this logic may be defended as at least being equally reasonable to the emission-effect calculations that form the core of Risk Assessment and Life-cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA). As predicted by policy sciences, this finding implies that the political neutrality of tools like LCIA is questionable. In summary, the approaches and procedures developed for LCA have to be reconciled with key lessons from policy science and philosophy of science, i.e. considering the fact that multiple realities play a key role in many decision making processes. This paper suggests some alternative indicators for toxicity evaluations, and indicates the implications of LCA method development.

Evaluating the environmental impacts of dietary recommendations

Significance Nationally recommended diets are a prominent method for informing the public on dietary choices. Although dietary choices drive both health and environmental outcomes, these diets make almost no reference to environmental impacts. Our study provides a comparison between the environmental impacts of average dietary intakes and a nation-specific recommended diet across 37 middle- and high-income nations. We find that following a nationally recommended diet in high-income nations results in a reduction in greenhouse gases, eutrophication, and land use. In upper-middle–income nations, we find a smaller reduction in impacts, and in lower-middle–income nations we find a substantial increase. The net result from large-scale adoption of nationally recommended diets for countries studied here results in a reduction in environmental impacts. Dietary choices drive both health and environmental outcomes. Information on diets come from many sources, with nationally recommended diets (NRDs) by governmental or similar advisory bodies the most authoritative. Little or no attention is placed on the environmental impacts within NRDs. Here we quantify the impact of nation-specific NRDs, compared with an average diet in 37 nations, representing 64% of global population. We focus on greenhouse gases (GHGs), eutrophication, and land use because these have impacts reaching or exceeding planetary boundaries. We show that compared with average diets, NRDs in high-income nations are associated with reductions in GHG, eutrophication, and land use from 13.0 to 24.8%, 9.8 to 21.3%, and 5.7 to 17.6%, respectively. In upper-middle–income nations, NRDs are associated with slight decrease in impacts of 0.8–12.2%, 7.7–19.4%, and 7.2–18.6%. In poorer middle-income nations, impacts increase by 12.4–17.0%, 24.5–31.9%, and 8.8–14.8%. The reduced environmental impact in high-income countries is driven by reductions in calories (∼54% of effect) and a change in composition (∼46%). The increased environmental impacts of NRDs in low- and middle-income nations are associated with increased intake in animal products. Uniform adoption of NRDs across these nations would result in reductions of 0.19–0.53 Gt CO2 eq⋅a−1, 4.32–10.6 Gt PO43− eq⋅a−1, and 1.5–2.8 million km2, while providing the health cobenefits of adopting an NRD. As a small number of dietary guidelines are beginning to incorporate more general environmental concerns, we anticipate that this work will provide a standardized baseline for future work to optimize recommended diets further.

Growth in Environmental Footprints and Environmental Impacts Embodied in Trade: Resource Efficiency Indicators from EXIOBASE3

Most countries show a relative decoupling of economic growth from domestic resource use, implying increased resource efficiency. However, international trade facilitates the exchange of products between regions with disparate resource productivity. Hence, for an understanding of resource efficiency from a consumption perspective that takes into account the impacts in the upstream supply chains, there is a need to assess the environmental pressures embodied in trade. We use EXIOBASE3, a new multiregional input-output database, to examine the rate of increase in resource efficiency, and investigate the ways in which international trade contributes to the displacement of pressures on the environment from the consumption of a population. We look at the environmental pressures of energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, material use, water use, and land use. Material use stands out as the only indicator growing in both absolute and relative terms to population and gross domestic product (GDP), while land use is the only indicator showing absolute decoupling from both references. Energy, GHG, and water use show relative decoupling. As a percentage of total global environmental pressure, we calculate the net impact displaced through trade rising from 23% to 32% for material use (1995?2011), 23% to 26% for water use, 20% to 29% for energy use, 20% to 26% for land use, and 19% to 24% for GHG emissions. The results show a substantial disparity between trade-related impacts for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and non-OECD countries. At the product group level, we observe the most rapid growth in environmental footprints in clothing and footwear. The analysis points to implications for future policies aiming to achieve environmental targets, while fully considering potential displacement effects through international trade.