CONSUMPTION FOOTPRINT

The Consumption Footprint is a set of 16 LCA-based indicators, aimed at quantifying the environmental impacts of an average EU citizen, based on the consumption of goods in 5 areas (food, mobility, housing, household goods, and appliances) (Sala & Sanyé Mengual, 2022).

The Consumption Footprint implements the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, which entails four main steps:

1. Definition of goal and scope. This step includes the overall design of the study, e.g. the definition of the specific objectives of the study, the description of the modelling assumptions, the identification of the intended audience etc.
2. Definition of the life cycle inventory (LCI). In this step, data on inputs, i.e. resources, and outputs, i.e. emissions in the environmental compartments (air, water, soil), entering and leaving the system under study should be collected.
3. Assessment of the environmental impacts. In this step, the environmental impacts due to resources use and emissions reported in the inventory are calculated through the use of impact models. Sixteen indicators referred to different impacts are considered, such as climate change, eutrophication of water bodies, use of fossil, mineral and metal resources. Furthermore, endpoint assessment models can be applied to assess effects of these 16 impacts on 3 areas of protection, i.e. human health, ecosystem health, and natural resources. These 16 indicators may be normalised by global impacts and weighted to be summarised in one “single score” indicator. Compared to the 16 indicators, the single score indicator has the advantage of being more effective for communication and for supporting the selection of alternatives, but at the same time “hides” part of the complexity of the different environmental impacts, and introduce a subjective element, i.e. weighting, which may affect the results.
4. Interpretation of the results. This step is aimed at fulfilling the goal and scope of the study. Typical questions which may be answered at this stage are “which are the most impacting stages of the supply chain?”, “which are the effects on the environment of a certain policy?”. LCA results are characterised by different sources of uncertainty which should be considered in the interpretation of the results. The definition of the life cycle inventory is subject to the availability of average information describing the system. In addition, impact assessment models are characterised by uncertainties, which to different extent influence the robustness of the 16 indicators

The Consumption Footprint encompasses the five most impacting areas of consumption, i.e. Food, Housing, Mobility, Household Goods, and Appliances. For each of them a “Basket of representative Products” has been defined and the environmental impacts of each basket has been calculated through LCA. Currently, the Consumption Footprint includes around 165 representative products. Environmental impacts of each representative product are multiplied with their consumption intensity based on apparent consumption approach (apparent consumption = production – export + import) or modelling the entire stock (e.g., mobility and housing).

The Consumption Footprint is based on the combination of:

1. the emissions to air, soil and water as well as the resources used along the life cycle of circa 165 representative products, belonging to 5 areas of consumption (food, mobility, housing, household goods, and appliances);
2. the consumption intensities of those products based on apparent consumption (= production – export + import);
3. the Environmental Footprint (EF) impact assessment method, which translates emissions and resource consumption into potential environmental impacts.

The Consumption Footprint results from aggregating the environmental impacts of consuming representative products. For each representative product, the consumption intensity is calculated for the year under analysis and multiplied by the environmental impact of the life cycle of the product (allocated to 1 year in case of a longer lifespan, e.g. durable goods).

Life cycle inventory databases are employed to obtain data for background processes (e.g., electricity production, transportation, waste treatment): ecoinvent 3.6 (Wernet et al., 2016) and Agrifootprint (Blonk Consultants, 2019).

The Consumption Footprint results can be reported at different scales:

• At EU level
• At Member States level
• Per areas of consumption (Food, Housing, Mobility, Household Goods, and Appliances)
• Per single products (around 165 products divided among food products, appliances, household goods, housing and mobility)
• Per life cycle stage
• Per environmental pressure (resource use, environmental emission)
• Per environmental impact category (Climate change, Ozone depletion, Particulate matter, Ionising radiation, Photochemical ozone formation, Acidification, Terrestrial Eutrophication, Freshwater Eutrophication, Marine Eutrophication, Freshwater ecotoxicity, Human toxicity (non-cancer), Human toxicity (cancer), Land use, Water use, Resource use (fossils), Resource use (minerals and metals)
• As a single headline indicator (consumption footprint)

The Consumption Footprint has been designed aiming at supporting policy-making in:

• Identifying environmental hotspots: the granularity of the indicators can provide information at different levels (environmental issues with the highest relevance, areas of consumption, product groups and products, life cycle stages of products, and of most relevant resource used or emissions to the environment). The indicators could be presented as 16 different environmental impact categories or as a single score. Biodiversity footprint could be presented as well.
• Monitoring: yearly updates of the indicators allow tracking the evolution of impacts associated with changes in production and consumption patterns. This may be strategic for monitoring e.g. how much EU is decoupling environmental impacts from economic growth, the benefits of transition towards circular economy, the ability of EU to remain within planetary boundaries as well as progress related to the SDGs (especially SDG12 on responsible consumption and production).
• Setting a baseline against which testing policy options and green transitions scenarios: the modularity of the indicators can formulate scenarios affecting not only lifestyles but all the stages along the supply-chain (from raw material extraction to end of life) as well as technological changes in the life cycle of products.
• Evaluating lifestyles and consumption patterns, which can be compared to EU and Member State average lifestyles.
• Identifying transboundary and spillovers effects, since the indicators could unveil the trade footprint, namely the amount of impacts embodied in imported goods.