Assessing water impacts of tea and margarine with a Water Footprint / LCA approach. Pilot study in Unilever

Transcription

1 Assessing impacts of tea and margarine with a Water Footprint / LCA approach. Pilot study in Unilever LCA IX, Boston, September 29th - October 2nd, 2009 Donna Jefferies, Vanessa J King, Maite M Aldaya, Ertug Ercin, Arjen Hoekstra, Llorenç Milà i Canals

2 Contents Goals Approaches: WF and LCA Results Discussion and Conclusions

3 Goals Evaluate the applicability of WF approach Compare the WF approach to LCA What can LCA & WF learn from each other? How to use the results? Apply new methods being developed for impact assessment (IA) for scarcity Contribute to methods development

4 Unilever WF-LCA Pilots Ingredients: Tea Packaging: Paper, string, cardboard, LDPE film, corrugated board Grown: Kenya, Indonesia, India Blended: Trafford Park, UK Packed: Brussels, Belgium Ingredients: Sunflower oil Palm oil Rapeseed oil Maize oil Packaging: PP tub + lid, corrugated board, LDPE film Grown: Argentina, Ukraine, Malaysia, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, France Blended and packed: Pratau (DE)

5 Approaches Water Footprint Definitions and approaches: Blue footprint: volume of surface or ground evaporated Green footprint: volume of evaporated soil moisture (rain) Grey footprint: dilution volume to dilute pollutants according to agreed quality standards Components (from Business WF Accounting, Gerbens-Leenes & Hoekstra 2008): Supply chain WF: amount of fresh used to produce all the goods and services that form the input of production at the specific business unit, i.e. the indirect fresh use Operational WF: amount of fresh used at a specific business unit per year, i.e. the direct fresh use Impact Assessment: Mapping significant blue and green WF on scarcity map: hotspots (large volume and is scarce) Grey WF

6 Components of a footprint User e.g. consumer/manuf Direct footprint rest of life cycle Indirect footprint Non-consumptive use (return flow) Water withdrawal Green footprint Blue footprint Green footprint Blue footprint Water consumption The traditional statistics on use Grey footprint Grey footprint Water pollution [Hoekstra, 2008]

7 Approaches LCI Accounting based on all volumes of fresh used in the whole life cycle: WF calculations for cropping stage: evaporative uses of blue and green Own data for manufacture (process) and use phases Ecoinvent database (all background processes): total abstracted (evaporative + non-evaporative use)

8 Approaches LCIA Fresh Ecosystem Impact (FEI) based on Withdrawal to Availability (WTA) (Alcamo et al. 1997) including Environmental Requirements (Smakhtin et al. 2004) Frischknecht et al. 2006; van Oel et al. 2008; Chapagain and Orr 2008; Milà i Canals et al. 2009; Pfister et al. 2009; Aldaya and Hoekstra 2009 Spatial differentiation: country level vs. shed In LCA, many background processes requiring average values (e.g. for Europe). For WF: similar for overheads Eutrophication and ecotoxicity results checked for consistency with grey volumes (results not shown)

9 Lipton Yellow Label Green WF In progress! WF Green (WF approach) Green BLT Indonesia BLT Kenya BLT South India Bag material Primary packaging Secondary packaging Tertiary packaging Overhead Used in product Processing w ater (packing and blending) Domestic w ater use in factories Energy blending Energy packing Electricity used by consumer Distribution Consumer use phase WF=293 BLT Indonesia BLT Kenya BLT South India Bag material Primary packaging Secondary packaging Tertiary packaging Overhead Used in product Processing w ater (packing and blending) Domestic w ater use in factories Energy blending Energy packing Electricity used by consumer Distribution Consumer use phase

10 Lipton Yellow Label Blue WF In progress! Blue WF Not to scale! WF = 8 WF = 33 LCA Main difference: WF does not include energy-related use LCA over-estimates: total volume abstracted BLT Indonesia BLT Kenya BLT South India Bag material Primary packaging Secondary packaging Tertiary packaging Overhead Used in product Processing w ater (packing and blending) Domestic w ater use in factories Energy blending Energy packing Electricity used by consumer Distribution Consumer use phase

11 Lipton Yellow Label WF Impact Assessment In progress! Coonor 5.20 WF 23 litres/carton Kericho % WF 159 litres/carton Blue Water WF 85 litres/carton Agrabinta 0.01 Green Water 100% 100%

12 Lipton Yellow Label LCIA FEI In progress! Fresh Ecosystem Impact (LCA) BLT Indonesia BLT Kenya BLT South India Bag material Primary packaging Secondary packaging Tertiary packaging Overhead Used in product Processing (packing and blending) Domestic use in factories Energy blending Energy packing Electricity used by consumer Distribution Consumer use phase From LCA abstracted, using WTA with Environmental Water Requirements (Smakhtin et al. 2004)

13 Conclusions: methods and pilots Main differences observed in volumes LCA-WF: Abstracted (LCA) vs. Evaporated (WF) Hotspots are mostly aligned, but WF excludes electricity generation In terms of Impacts: Tea sourced from India suggest biggest hotspot, although it is not a big volume, both WF and LCA WF: difficult to see all relevant volumes at the same time on world map Use phase also relevant in LCA results: direct use and (mostly) electricity-related

14 Conclusions: business need Unilever needs Pragmatic tools that can inform strategic decisions and drive improvement Appropriate balance of measurement and management (Omit the overhead the contribution is tiny, the effort isn t!) Portfolio level applicability NOT absolute perfection for a specific SKU Aggregated results (e.g. in m 3 -eq over the life cycle) are useful for some uses (e.g. hotspots); others benefit from mapping (e.g. risk mitigation; strategic investment) The WF and LCA approaches bring unique and complementary perspectives

15 THANK YOU!

16 References Aldaya MM, Hoekstra AY (2009): The needed to have Italians eat pasta and pizza. Value of Water Research Report No. 36. UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, the Netherlands Chapagain AK, Orr S (2008): UK Water Footprint: the impact of the UK s food and fibre consumption on global resources. WWF-UK Frischknecht R, Steiner R, Braunschweig A, Egli N, Hildesheimer G (2006) Swiss Ecological Scarcity Method: The New Version In proceedings from: The Seventh International Conference on EcoBalance, Nov 14-16, 2006, Tsukuba, Japan, Gerbens-Leenes PW, Hoekstra AY (2008): Business footprint accounting: A tool to assess how production of goods and services impacts on fresh resources worldwide. Value of Water Research Report Series No. 27. UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, the Netherlands Hoekstra AY (2008): Water neutral: reducing and offsetting the impacts of footprints, Value of Water Research Report Series No.28, UNESCO-IHE Milà i Canals L, Chenoweth J, Chapagain AK, Orr S, Antón A, Clift R Assessing Fresh Use Impacts in LCA Part I: Inventory Modelling and Characterisation Factors for the Main Impact Pathways. Int J Life Cycle Ass 14(1) Pfister S, Kohler A, Hellweg S (2009) Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Fresh Consumption in LCA. Environ Sci Technol 43(11) Raskin P, Gliek P, Kirshen P, Pontius G, Strzepek K (1997): Water futures: assessment of long-range patterns and problems. Swedish Environment Institute/United Nations, Stockholm Smakhtin V, Revenga C, Döll P (2004) Taking into account environmental requirements in global-scale resources assessments. Comprehensive Assessment Report 2 van Oel PR, Mekonnen MM, Hoekstra AY (2008): The external Water Footprint of the Netherlands: Quantification and impact assessment. Value of Water Research Report No. 33. UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, the Netherlands

17 Backup slides

18 Context - Vitality Water metric = Water in raw materials Water Process + + included in + product Water used by consumer (stressed country)

19 The footprint of a food processor Farmer Virtual flow Food processor Virtual flow Retailer Virtual flow Consumer green and blue use grey blue use grey blue use grey blue use grey Supply chain WF Operational WF End-use WF of a product The traditional statistics on corporate use [Hoekstra, 2008]