Page 158 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Accelerating life cycle assessment uptake: life cycle management and ‘quick’ LCA tools

understand how to purchase appropriately for a specific environmental problem (Szarka 1991). 145
Moreover, environmental consciousness does not necessarily lead to environmentally friendly
behaviour, and environmental awareness does not necessarily lead to a change in purchasing
behaviour (Gallaroti 1995; Pedersen and Neergaard 2006). Different types of green consumers
exist; some may be ‘selectively green’ and/or may be manipulated to purchase products that are
not green because of imperfect information (Pedersen and Neergaard 2006). What is perhaps
most significant is that information overload is clearly rife in consumer purchasing. In one
study, 97% of those surveyed indicated that there ‘was more stuff to read than I could ever
dream of reading’, and 92% indicated that they felt ‘surrounded’ by information (Lloyd 2006).
Of particular interest for quick LCA is the issue of availability and trustworthiness of environ-
mental information. While there is good recognition of eco-label-type information in the
Nordic countries (Leire and Thidell 2005), there is poor recognition and a lack of understand-
ing of symbols and labels in Australia (e.g. in New South Wales (Taverner Research Company
2004)). The exceptions are the Minimum Energy Performance Standards energy labelling and
Water Efficiency Labelling Scheme, which are both mandatory and both enjoy widespread rec-
ognition among consumers (Horne et al. 2007).
Key barriers for consumers include price, awareness, trust, the complexity and availability of
information, and the interplay of this with other behavioural factors and influences. These issues
also apply to business-to-business ‘sustainable’ purchasing, in which there is evidence of an
increase in activity (AELA 2004). Indeed, on the international front, eco-labelling programs in
New Zealand and Canada have turned their focus from the consumer market towards the profes-
sional purchasing market. For both business and household consumers, there is a case for trust-
worthy, clear, useful and independent environmental information, and quick LCA tools could be
involved in the supply of such information, perhaps incorporating some form of labelling.
Specifiers are a particular group involved in purchasing. For example, interior designers
are often responsible for specifying purchases they will not themselves make, but for which
they exercise professional responsibility on behalf of clients. In common with other ‘profes-
sional’ purchasers, their decisions are generally more informed and more prone to influence
by business drivers. In Australia, as in other western countries, specifiers are engaged in
responding to an emerging set of ‘green building’ drivers (which vary in their relationship to,
and their use of, LCA information). Since specification goes beyond purchasing and involves
considerable influence over the nature of the products purchased, there is a specific role for
quick LCA tools in assisting specifiers. For example, in determining whether to specify wool or
synthetic textiles for chair upholstery, such a tool may allow a specifier to determine reliably
and quickly the best environmental option – and the environmental significance of any par-
ticular decision.
11.3.3 Policy makers and regulators
As indicated above, price is an important issue for consumers. Regulation helps to determine
prices through a range of market-setting, calibration and intervention strategies. On this basis,
if regulation required the external environmental costs of all processes to be incorporated into
prices by adding the value of the damage they cause, then many environmentally benign goods
and services would be cheaper than they are at present. While a summary of the wide and con-
tested literature of neo-classical environmental economics is outside the scope of this book,
the point is that regulators have a major role in determining the unevenness of playing fields
for environmentally preferable goods and services.
Since governments have not generally implemented wide-scale market mechanisms to
internalise environmental externalities in consumer goods, there is sometimes a price premium
on environmental products. This is despite them having a lower cost to society (including

100804•Life Cycle Assessment 5pp.indd 145 17/02/09 12:46:24 PM