Page 106 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

88 LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT HANDBOOK

• A global consensus among developers for fate, exposure and effect
characterization of human toxicity and ecotoxicity with USEtox™
(Hauschild et ah 2008, Rosenbaum et al 2008).

Building on these outcomes, more recently the Joint Research Center of the
European Commission (EC-JRC) published in 2011 a guidance document pro-
viding recommendations of best practice characterization framework, models
and factors (for the common impact categories) that should be used for impact
assessment in applications such as LCA (EC-JRC 2011). The ILCD Handbook
is meant to support consistent and reliable business and policy instruments
within the European Union (EU) related to products, natural resources, and
waste management and their implementation, such as eco-labelling, eco-
design, and green procurement.
More recently, several initiatives have been started by government or by
industry with the aim to harmonize LCA practices, particularly for environ-
mental product declarations. To mention a few of them:

Grenelle de l'environnement is a group (it could be called a "roundtable" in
English) that brings together government, local authorities, trade unions, busi-
ness and voluntary sectors to address and act on environmental issues.
The Sustainability Consortium, launched in 2009, is an organization
of diverse global participants working to make the world more sustain-
able through better products, services and consumption. The efforts within
the Consortium include the development of integrated tools that aim to
improve informed decision making for product sustainability throughout the
entire product lifecycle across all relevant consumer goods sectors.
The Consumer Goods Forum works to harmonize framework and measure-
ment systems in order to support better and more informed decision making.
Among several recommendations, these stakeholder groups agreed on metrics
and indicators to be applied with the aim to reduce the level of freedom when
performing and communicating LCA results. Most of the recommendations
made by the above mentioned initiatives build upon the recommendations
made by the ILCD Handbook. In September 2011, the Forum announced
release of the Global Protocol on Packaging Sustainability (GPPS) 2.0 to enable
the consumer goods industry to better assess the relative sustainability of
packaging, http://globalpackaging.mycgforum.com/

Several other methods for characterization models and factors are found in
the literature, but without necessarily being integrated into a comprehensive
LCIA methodology. A more detailed and extensive overview can be found in
the ILCD Handbook (EC-JRC 2010b).

4.6 State-of-the-Art LCIA

The ISO 14044 standard recommends that "the impact categories, category
indicators and characterization models should be internationally accepted, i.e.
based on an international agreement or approved by a competent international