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(M/MC267) Development of indicators to evaluate environmental- and economical life cycle performance of recovery systems. Eik, Arne1, Rodrigo, Julio2, Brattebo, Helge1, Hertwich, Edgar3, Castells, Francesc4, Brekke, Andreas3, 1 2 3 4 ABSTRACT- In the last decade much effort has been put in to increase the rate of recovery of waste into new products. This issue has received a lot of attention and tools as life cycle assessment and cost-benefit analysis have been applied to carry out studies to answer to what extent- and in what technical way recovery systems could be justified from an environmental- and economical point of view. However, these studies are carried out by the influence of value judgements throughout the whole study, from defining the goal and scope of the study to the final interpretation part where conclusions are drawn. Firstly, studies carried out for one system should therefore not be used as a general information basis for decision makers when deciding to what extent recovery should be prioritised in other systems. Secondly, rather than carrying out a rigid and standardised analysis, which necessarily is the case when using tools as life cycle assessment or cost-benefit analysis, evaluations of existing or possible future recovery systems should be carried out by focusing on supporting the actual decision makers with needed information. Hence indicators giving the environmental- and, if included, the economical performance of recovery systems must be designed in such a way that the most relevant information for decision making is given. Four criteria are identified as crucial to obtain this goal; the indicators must be integrated in the decision making process, they must reflect the objective of the evaluation, they must be science-based and finally, the indicators must be applicable for the decision maker. Key words: recovery system, life cycle performance, decision making, eco-efficiency indicators |
