SEAC SAFETY & ENVIRONMENTAL ASSURANCE CENTRE

Towards Operationalizing the Planetary

Boundaries Concept in LCA for Products

CHALLENGES

• Additional science is needed to underpin

several of the global boundaries

• Further consideration required to address

regional/local impacts of certain PBs

• Approaches for sharing the SOS between

sectors, companies, product types, individuals

(proportion vs. equal allocation)

• Evolution of traditional LCA data and systems;

open-source, ‘big-data’, informatics, etc.

Richard J. Murphy1, Julie Clavreul2, Sarah Sim2, Henry King2,

Ian Christie1, Jonathan Chenoweth1, Jaquetta Lee1, Roland Clift1

1Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK

2 Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre (SEAC), Unilever, Colworth Science Park, Sharnbrook, UK

REFERENCES Rockström, J et al (2009). A safe operating space

for humanity. Nature 461: 472-475

Steffen, W. et al (2015). Planetary boundaries:

Guiding human development on a changing

planet. Science 347 (6223)

Nykvist B, et al (2013). National Environmental

Performance on Planetary Boundaries - A study

for the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

Report 6573, June 2013.

CDP website https://www.cdp.net/en-

US/Pages/HomePage.aspx

ALLOCATING THE SOS TO

INDUSTRIAL SECTORS

• The CDP approach allocates the SOS to

industrial sectors proportionally on the basis

of their current emissions intensity

PB Pcropland annual reduction need for

SOS2050 0.229 Tg P yr

Plastics all0.007 Tg P yr

Wheat grain0.162 Tg P yr

Chrome steel0.002 Tg P yr

Diesel fuel prodn. only…

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

An

nu

al P

cro

pla

nd

flo

w f

or

SOS2

05

0%

Estimated annual P emissions from global production of example materialsin comparison with Annual reduction neededfor PB Biogeochemical flow (P) to attain SOS2050

PB annual Climate Change allowance

for SOS2050 1.1 Gt CO2e

Plastics0.76 Gt CO2e

Wheat grain0.40 Gt CO2e

Chrome steel0.14 Gt CO2e

Diesel fuel prodn. only

0.63 Gt CO2e

0

20

40

60

80

100

An

nu

al C

O2

e e

mis

sio

n a

s %

of

SOS 2

05

0

Estimated annual GHG emissions from global production of example materialsin comparison with Annual reduction neededfor GHG emissions to attain SOS2050

Steffen et al. (2015)

SIGNIFICANCE

• The Planetary Boundaries (PB) concept enables a switch of

mind-sets from relative to ‘absolute environmental sustainability’

• The ‘Safe Operating Space’ (SOS) presents a context for

transformative innovation. It has clear relevance for developing

a ‘distance to target’ approach based on LCA

• Traditional LCA is already applied in the Fast Moving Consumer

Goods (FMCG) sector. We explore the possibility of configuring

the framework of LCA around the nine Planetary Boundaries

CONTEXTUALISING THE CHALLENGE

• Here we illustrate a “distance-to-target” approach for two PBs:

Climate Change and Biogeochemical flows of Phosphorous

• The likely boundary of the climate change category suggests a

drop in global GHG emissions from ca. 52 Gt CO2e /yr to ca. 14 Gt

CO2e /yr by 2050. Applying this reduction linearly from 2015 to

2050 yields a global annual reduction value of 1.1Gt CO2e/yr to

remain within the SOS2050

• A similar approach for the phosphorus boundary (croplands) yields

an annual reduction value of 0.229 Tg P /yr to meet SOS2050

• Several individual activities on their own (e.g. plastics, wheat grain)

account for very large proportions of the total global ‘annual’

reduction needed

ALLOCATING THE SOS TO INDIVIDUALS

• The method developed by Nykvist et al. (2013)

downscales planetary-level values to per-capita

impact and to national boundaries

Climate change per capita boundary performance in 2008

(Nykvist et al. 2013)