A guide to creating your first ISO 14044 report in PIQET
1. Drafting an ISO 14044 compliant title
To ensure that you avoid using a misleading title in your ISO compliant report, consider the following:
Keep it clear and simple.
Do not mention ‘PIQET’ in your title.
Use ‘Life cycle assessment’ not carbon footprint or environmental footprint etc.
Example 1: Life cycle assessment of retail wine packaging options
Example 2: Comparative life cycle assessment of glass, PET and cask retail wine packaging.
2. Tips on drafting a ‘Goal statement’
The goal and scope set up the framework for the assessment. The overarching goal statement should describe the reason for carrying out the study, intended application and audience.
Example: To compare the environmental impact of glass, PET and cask wine for retail wine packaging which will used to inform ‘Packaging Co Inc.’ design team.
3. Selecting ‘Impact categories’
The impact categories and characterization models that can be used in PIQET are internationally accepted, however a selected set within this range of available indicators can be chosen for the product or process under analysis.
The impact categories should reflect a comprehensive set of indicators which are consistent with the goal and scope. The select indicators should prioritize environmentally relevant category indicators, and their relevance should be clearly stated.
Example: Climate change impact will be assessed due to the high impact of packaging materials across the life cycle on wine products studied. Land and water use will be assessed to measure the impacts of cask wine which contains cardboard and is dependent on forestry. Mineral depletion, fossil and non-fossil will be assessed due to the non-renewable resource use in glass, plastic and aluminium laminate pouches.
For further examples of impact category selection, refer to our sample projects; ‘Cosmetic tubes’, ‘Mobile phone package’ and ‘UHT V PET for Milk’.
4. System boundary justification
Provide rationale for your system boundary of the product systems that were analyzed.
This should include everything that is substantially affected by demand for the product (e.g., extraction and production processes). The system boundary may also exclude elements that fall below the cut-off threshold. You will need to provide a short justification for why certain processes have been excluded from your product system.
Example: The boundary includes raw material extraction, manufacturing, transport, conversion into refined packaging materials and end-of-life processing. We have also included the bottling facility energy consumption due to the impact the variance in bottle material weights may have on the machine loads. We have included the capital goods across the life cycle.
We have excluded the wine product from this assessment as it does not vary between packaging options and is external to ‘PackagingCo Inc.’ packaging scope.
We have also excluded the use phase of the wine, referring to additional transport to destination from retail, refrigeration and washing due to high variability and uncertainty. This is also deemed outside of the scope of influence for ‘Packaging Co Inc.’ who are conducting this study to inform decision-making.
5. Multi-functionality justification
By default, PIQET’s allocation factor is 0.5, meaning that the benefits of recycling are sharing equally between the product system which generates the packaging to be recycled, and the product system which utilizes the recycled material as secondary material input.
This was selected as the default approach on the basis that, although some packaging materials have high recyclability and strong recycling markets, the fate of the packaging at the user level is still highly uncertain and variable.
Example: We have adapted the recycling allocation factor from PIQET default of 0.5 according to the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) recommendations for glass and PET options.
6. Tips on how to write 'Other assumptions'
Whilst it would be ideal to have a complete data set, in practice there is often remaining gaps where informed assumptions may be required. This may be due to incomplete data for a particular stage of the assessment where data is difficult to obtain or unavailable, for example in the case of products still in the design or development phase.
Assumptions that are suspected to cause sensitivity in the impact category results should be addressed and tested in the sensitivity analysis. Depending on the results, a reiteration of the assessment may be required with further collected data or better research data acquired.
It is important to comment on these assumptions included in the analysis, they will also be assessed in the data quality assessment.
Note: This is where you should justify any changes to the default recycling rates.
Example 1: Due to our company’s product collection system through drop-off points, we have collected product-specific data for our current bottle designs. Of the 20% products returned, we assumed that all are recycled, the remaining 80% are assumed to follow default recycling rates.
Example 2: Product loss of plastic packaged wine is assumed to be 10% due to reduced shelf-life of 8-12 months.
Example 3: PIQET default was 50%, but majority of our customers are based in the S.A., which has a much higher recycling rate of 90%.
7. Sensitivity analysis
You may conduct multiple sensitivity analyses to present how variations in input data could affect the study results.
Firstly, label a reference scenario to be used as a baseline for the analysis. Then, label up to four variations, which are scenarios used throughout the project. Commentary will be derived from the scenario configuration description field.
Example:
Reference scenario: Product loss rate of PETbottles 10%
Sensitivity scenario 1: Product loss rate of PET bottles 5%
Sensitivity scenario 2: Product loss rate of PET bottles 15%
Sensitivity scenario 3: Product loss rate of PETbottles 20%
8. Things to consider in ‘Interpretation’
The interpretation section is crucial stage in LCA to ensure reliability and clarity of the impact assessment results. It is for identifying significant issues based on the results of the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) and Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) phases of LCA, evaluating completeness, sensitivity and consistency checks and where conclusions, limitations and recommendations can be made. Recommendations are directed to the intended audience or decision makers defined in the goal and scope of the study.
Example interpretation of results:
Based on the hotspot analysis, the raw material phase has the highest impact when compared with manufacturing, distribution and end-of-life phases across all packaging options. The raw material phase impact is 3 times higher for glass when compared with PET, and 2.5 times higher than the cask alternative.
Example recommendations and conclusions:
Based on the hotspot analysis and sensitivity study
we recommend further investigation into…
we recommend product B over products A and C…
9. ‘Data quality assessment’ best practice
It is important to acknowledge that perfect data doesn’t exist, and that a transparent assessment is best practice in LCA for the intended audience to able to interpret the study. It’s important to be mindful of language to avoid greenwashing.
Example: We could not find an exact match for the plastic injection molding machine in available databases, so we have used a substitute process which moderately represents the technology and adjusted the electricity input based on primary data.
Glossary
Goal and scope: The goal and scope of an LCA shall be clearly defined and shall be consistent with the intended application. Due to the iterative nature of LCA, the scope may have to be refined during the study.
Functional unit: functional unit quantified performance of a product system for use as a reference unit.
System boundary: system boundary set of criteria specifying which unit processes are part of a product system.
Sensitivity analysis: sensitivity analysis systematic procedures for estimating the effects of the choices made regarding methods and data on the outcome of a study.
Impact category: impact category class representing environmental issues of concern to which life cycle inventory analysis results may be assigned.
Critical review: critical review process intended to ensure consistency between a life cycle assessment and the principles and requirements of the International Standards on lifecycle assessment
ISO 14044:2006/Amd.2:2020(E).
If you are interested in using PIQET to conduct your own IS0 14044 compliant report, get in touch below: