Page 212 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

198 R.K. Rosenbaum et al.

range of endpoint impact indicators available, this may be solved with science
advancing further.
• Different footprints can usually not be combined to enlarge their environmental
scope because their system boundaries (see Chaps. 8 and 9) are not aligned and
double counting of impacts becomes likely, which increases the risk of bias to
the comparison, the same way the omission of impacts does.
As mentioned above, the focus on single environmental problems has important
implications regarding the risks of using footprints in decision-making processes.
A study by Huijbregts et al. (2008) calculated 2630 product-specific ecological
footprints of products and services (e.g. energy, materials, transport, waste treat-
ment, etc.). They concluded that “Ecological footprints may […] serve as a
screening indicator for environmental performance… [and provide] a more com-
plete picture of environmental pressure compared to non-renewable CED
[Cumulative Energy Demand]”, while also observing that “There are cases that may
[…] not be assessed in an adequate way in terms of environmental impact. For
example, a farmer switching from organic to intensive farming would benefitbya
smaller footprint for using less land, while the environmental burdens from
applying more chemicals [i.e. pesticides and fertilisers] would be neglected”. Thus,
the usefulness of the ecological footprint as a stand-alone indicator may often be
limited (Huijbregts et al. 2008).
The limitations of carbon footprints (i.e. the climate change impact indicator in
LCA) as environmental sustainability indicators was investigated by a study from
Laurent et al. (2012), who assessed the carbon footprint and 13 other impact scores
from 4000 different products, technologies and services (e.g. energy generation,
transportation, material production, infrastructure, waste management). They found
“that some environmental impacts, notably those related to emissions of toxic
substances, often do not covary with climate change impacts. In such situations,
carbon footprint is a poor representative of the environmental burden of products,
and environmental management focused exclusively on [carbon footprint] runs the
risk of inadvertently shifting the problem to other environmental impacts when
products are optimised to become more “green”. These findings call for the use of
more broadly encompassing tools to assess and manage environmental sustain-
ability” (Laurent et al. 2012).
This problem is demonstrated in Fig. 10.5, which shows the carbon footprint,
ecological footprint, volumetric water footprint and the LCA results for an illus-
trative comparison of two products A and B. If one had to choose between option A
and B, the decision would be different and thus depending on, which footprint was
considered, whereas LCA results provide the full range of potential impacts to
consider in the decision.
The large variety in footprints and their definitions and methodological basis in
combination with their wide use in environmental communication and marketing
claims, has resulted in confusing and often contradictory messages to buyers. This
ultimately limited the development and functioning of a market for green products
(Ridoutt et al. 2015, 2016). In response, a group of experts established under the