DF 59 — National environmental footprints and planetary boundaries: From methodology to policy implementation

Discussion forum on Life Cycle Assessment
Friday, June 12, 2015, ETH Zurich

Dear colleagues with an interest in Life Cycle Assessment,

We cordially invite you to the 59th Discussion Forum on Life Cycle Assessment
The official language of this event is English

The concept of environmental planetary boundaries published in the scientific literature receives a growing interest by governments. Even companies are starting to use this concept in their environmental policy. Life cycle assessment (LCA) seems to be a promising partner of the planetary boundary concepts quantifying consumption based environmental impacts. This LCA forum contributes to bringing together national environmental footprinting and environmental planetary boundary concepts (an introduction to the concept of planetary boundaries and their application can be found at
http://www.stockholmresilience.org/planetary-boundaries ).

(How) can LCA approaches be used to relate regional environmental impacts to planetary boundaries, to the environmental carrying capacity of our planet earth?
Nations and regions, such as the EU and Switzerland, started to quantify their consumption based environmental footprint by including environmental impacts caused abroad.
Different approaches are used to quantify these impacts:
1) environmentally extended input-output tables, sometimes multi-regional and connecting main global trade partners;
2) LCA data combined with national and trade statistics;
3) other statistical approaches.

The forum allows to learn about recent research findings about the environmental footprint of nations as well as about the environmental planetary boundaries, and to hear about first plans and experiences with policy implementation in administration and industry. The participants will have the opportunity to discuss in breakout groups about pros and cons of different approaches, about future needs of policy makers, and the appropriate level of aggregation.

We look forward to meeting you in Zürich


Rolf Frischknecht, treeze Ltd.

on behalf of the Organising Committee

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Final Programme

Download:    DF59-Programme_Planetary_Boundaries.pdf