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Minutes of the Packaging LCA Scoping Group - 8 July 2008

We met at the offices of the American Iron and Steel Institute in Washington DC, whose support is gratefully noted.

Present were:
Dennis Sabourin (NAPCOR); Beverly Sauer (Franklin Associates); Joe Cattaneo (GPI); Bob Strieter (Aluminum Association); Jimlong Wang (Aluminum Association); Tom Gloria (eQuilibrium); Keith Christman (American Chemistry Association); Bill Heenan (Steel Recycling Institute); Jeremy Van de Water (Paperboard Packaging Council); Ram K. Singhal (Flexible Packaging Association); Jeff Wooster (Dow); Andrei Kotchetov (GPI/OI); Rita Schenck (IERE)

The agenda was approved and introduction made for those new to the process:

The group reviewed their flow charts (a change was made for Aluminum). After discussing the different sources of LCI background data, the group reconfirmed its decision to use the US LCI database and decided to supplement that database with data from the Ecoinvent database.

The group reviewed the impact assessment issues and opportunities. They noted that Wal-Mart had already decided to use the 1995 IPCC 100 year horizon factors for the climate change indicator, but they recommended that current IPCC characterization factors would be better. Both sets of the factors will appear in the final report.

The group also discussed the USE-tox models. These models are quite good for non site specific human and ecological toxicity indicators but they do not do a good job of evaluating inorganic substances. The human toxicity model of USE tox is based on a set of value judgments by WHO expert panels, and the group notes that this impact indicator therefore represents an endpoint indicator, something that the group was trying to avoid. However, this model represents a practical solution to the problem of the many endpoints that can be measured or calculated for human toxicity. It was decided that there would be a strong discussion of the opportunities and uncertainties of these methods, with special reference to the metal issues.

We discussed the need for more information on the printing process. Ram said that he could get contacts for Rita.

The group agreed to adopt the TRACI methodology for several indicators:

However, they noted that many of the indicators were non-transparent, and a discussion of those limitations with a recommendation for a transparent process for developing LCIA models would be included in the report. The group also noted that the water indicator (which is an inventory indicator) should be a measure of consumptive use: i.e. freshwater withdrawn and not replaced back into a freshwater stock. This is commonly referred to as net freshwater usage.

There were two remaining impact categories: soil depletion and mineral resource depletion should be represented through inventory indicators. In the case of soil depletion the indicator should represent soil lost from the site through erosion (even if it is simply transferred to another site). The universal soil loss equation and other models can help calculate this loss, which is applicable to mining and forestry as well as to agricultural sites. In the case of mineral resource depletion, it should be expressed as the inventory of the mineral, but only minerals with less than 200 years of proven reserve should be reported. The USGS Minerals Yearbook provides figures on global reserves.

The group recognized that there was a wide diversity of confidence for each of the different indicators. The climate change, fossil fuel depletion, mineral resource depletion, soil depletion, water resource depletion and land use figures would likely be of high quality and reliability. The models moving from land use to biodiversity loss on the other hand are of poor reliability. And the ecotoxicity and human toxicity indicators are also less reliable due to the issues raised above.

The group judged the eutrophication, photochemical smog and acidification indicators to be of moderate confidence. These indicators model effects that are regional in nature and the data collection called for in this scoping effort does not represent a site-specific analysis.

The group discussed the options for interpretation of results. Gravity analysis for the packaging components did not seem to be useful at this time. On the other hand, the group was interested in normalization of the package impacts versus the contents of the package impacts. The logic for this is that the function of the package is to protect the contents until consumer use. Failure of the packaging means failure of the packaging contents as well. A failed package implies that all the impact of producing the contents is wasted as well.

The group decided that the scoping we have done here could also be used to support an EPD, although in itself it is not an EPD scoping document.

We discussed the format and objectives of the report to be produced.

Although this effort was instigated by the need to support the Wal-Mart Sustainable Packaging Scorecard, the work represented here is valuable for a much wider group of organizations. The report will recommend that Wal-Mart take this analysis and integrate it into the second phase of the scorecard. Specific recommendations include:

  1. The entire life cycle should be included in the greenhouse gas analysis portion of the scorecard.
  2. LCA is designed to measure the sustainability of products. The sustainable materials category should be replaced by some combination of the other life cycle impact indicators, over the entire life cycle.
  3. Wal-Mart should recognize in their scoring process that not all impact indicators are created equal, and that in some cases the error bars around the indicators can be very large.

The group decided that the report should be a guidance document on how to scope a packaging LCA in the context of a multi-stakeholder process. It should have an executive summary that includes a discussion on the precision of the category indicators.

The document should include

  1. A discussion on the use of scoring/valuation as applied in the general and in the Wal-Mart Packaging Scorecard.
  2. A description on the background of the Wal-Mart process, but it should make it clear that Wal-Mart is not a funder: the document will be useful for a wide range of users.
  3. A discussion of issues related to the site specific impact assessment versus industry average analysis
  4. A discussion on LCA highlighting that it is the best tool available for measuring the environmental sustainability of products
  5. A discussion on the needed areas of improvement in impact assessment (especially vis-à-vis transparency) and inventory development (especially vis-à-vis transparency and nomenclature).
  6. A focus on transparency
  7. A description of the drivers for this process, i.e. the need for technical strength, a level playing field and cost control.

We discussed some of the users for this guidance document, including the Institute of Packaging Professionals and the Packaging Association of Canada. The document will reside on the IERE website as a PDF. It was also discussed that this effort be put in a format so that it could be presented to the Life Cycle Assessment world at the upcoming LCA VIII Conference.

Rita will be providing a first draft of the document, hopefully in a week. We all agreed to respond as quickly as possible. This may mean making arrangements for review while one is on vacation. The authors will be all those who have worked substantially with the group, as representatives of their industry associations. Tom Gloria and Bev Sauer will comment and be listed as outside reviewers (or other category to be agreed upon). The Paperboard Packaging Council will be listed as endorsing the report (assuming that they approve the document), and some other groups may also wish to endorse the work.