21 st Annual Conference

1. 21st Annual Conference

2. Mercury Lamps - Life Cycle Assessment for Product StewardshipPeter Garrett – ERM New Zealand 15th October 2009

3. Agenda • Who is ERM? • LCA and product stewardship • Key points of LCA process • Case study: Mercury lamps in NZ

4. ERM – Worldwide Environmental Consultancy • ERM services in this area: • Product Stewardship Accreditation Assessors (NZ MfE) • Life cycle management (LCM) and assessment (LCA) • Waste management • Strategy • Minimisation • Technology appraisal • Forecasting 350 staff in Australia and New Zealand

5. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) • ‘Cradle to grave’ environmental accounting • exchanges of energy and materials with the environment at each stage of the life cycle • emissions to air, land and water • 1960s energy analysis, developed by SETAC in the 1980s and ISO in the 1990s (ISO 14040/44) • Streamlined LCA simplifies the full-blown approach • Carbon footprinting is streamlined LCA through consideration of only carbon (global warming impacts)

6. LCA, Product Stewardship & Waste Management • LCA is best-practice method for assessing environmental impacts for product stewardship and waste management: • NZ Waste Minimisation Act supports life cycle approach under Product Stewardship • EU thematic strategy on waste – life cycle approach • EU Integrated Product Policy – life cycle approach • UNEP Environment programme on Life Cycle Management • Defra (UK) LCA assessments formally integrated into the Business cases for PFI for waste • Harvard Business Review September 2009 – LCA needs to be a core business competence

7. Storage & Retail Storage & Consumption INDIRECT Retail Transport Production Distribution Transport Disposal DIRECT Raw Materials Impacts Across Value Chains • Impacts occur at every stage of the product life cycle • Controlling direct impacts can lead to ‘burden shifting’ and may be counter-productive • Need to take an holistic view

8. Define the Life Cycle System • Define aim of LCA • Define product ‘equivalence’ • define study flow • Set system boundary • identify life cycle stages • use appropriate cut-off • Quantify the flows • Calculate the impacts • Interpret and assess results and options • Data collection and selection is key: • ensure consistency and transparent assumptions

9. Effective Decision Support • Benefits of LCA for Product Stewardship: • Scientifically robust results • Reduces risk • Understand environmental benefits • Supports decision making: • inform policy • inform marketing claims • support green purchasing • basis for awards/credentials • use in product design/development process • aid investment decisions (eg waste technology/manufacturing)

10. LCA Applications • Applications: • An individual • A product/service • A site • A business • A sector • A new enterprise • Any choice

11. Mercury lamps in NZ

12. Background • Fully ISO compliant LCA • Aim to understand the environmental impacts of mercury-containing lamps to help inform potential policy under Waste Minimisation Act • Inform the evidence base for discussions with stakeholders on policy options • Series of three reports on mercury: (1) New Zealand Lighting Industry Product Stewardship Scheme (PHASE 1 Assessment) and (2) Review and Mercury Inventory for New Zealand 2008 • Issues surrounding: • What are the impacts of mercury? • Is a take-back scheme environmentally beneficial? • What effect does take-back collection rate have? • How does mercury-level effect the impacts? • What effect will lamp lifetime and efficiency have? • Links will be available at:

13. Goal & Scope • Assess “typical” mercury-containing lamps in New Zealand • Determine whole-life environmental impacts: • raw materials, import, lamp production, distribution, use, and waste management • Assessed over 100,000 hours of operation • Results are not comparable across lamp types

14. Benefits of recycled materials Life Cycle for Lamps • Scenarios: • Recovery and recycling rates of 0%, 9%, 50% and 80% • Reduced mercury level by 20% • Extended lifetime of 50% • Increased operating efficiency 10%

15. Study Results – Not yet published! • Full range of environmental impacts: • depletion of resources; • global warming; • stratospheric ozone depletion; • human toxicity; • fresh-water and marine aquatic eco-toxicity; • terrestrial ecotoxicity; • photo-oxidant formation; • acidification; and • eutrophication. • Result shown by: • By life cycle stage (manufacture, transport, use, disposal, recycling/recovery) • By lamp type • Benefits of options assessed • Issues of economics and of practicability (e.g. consumer engagement) are outside of the scope of this study

16. Study Outcomes – Mercury Lamps in NZ • Scientifically based results of environmental impacts • Externally reviewed, ISO compliant, New Zealand specific • Identify scale of environmental benefits across supply chain • Of increased recycling/recovery • Comparable within lamp types • Prioritise where impacts/benefit arise in the life cycle • Risk minimisation • Inform government policy / targets / legislation • Transparent and open information to industry • Results published by end 2009

17. Any questions?Thank you for listening

18. 21st Annual Conference