International Workshop for Scope 3 Standard and LCA for Organization (Nov 21, 2013）

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has already been widely used as a general method for analyzing environmental performance of a product, as LCA method can capture a whole picture of the product environmental impacts in an entire life cycle from resource mining to disposal. In addition, ISO14040/14044 (2006) had already been issued, describing LCA method to assess environmental aspects of products/services.

The possible application of LCA method, however, is not limited to product/service, and activities to try to apply LCA method to organization (company) have been recently increasing in the world, as LCA method can be used for assessing environmental aspects associated with a subject, as well as improving its environmental impacts.

The concept of LCA application to organization has been disseminated by “Scope 3” (or “Value Chain”) Standard of GHG Protocol (WRI/WBCSD). Following the Scope 3, concept of “carbon footprint of organization” has been shown by ISO/TR14069 (2012). Both of the concepts only covers greenhouse gases (GHG), but European Commission (EC) newly proposes a method to assess not only GHG but also other environmental aspects, called “Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF)”. In April 2013 EC issued “OEF Guide,” and will start a pilot project from November 2013 to develop its quantification rules by sector. Moreover, ISO/TC207/SC5 has started to consider issuance of ISO/TS14072 describing LCA application to organization, which is expected to be issued around the early 2014. In addition, aiming to organize these activities/initiatives and to consider the ideal method to assess environmental aspects of organization, UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative launched a new project, “LCA of Organisations,” in May 2013.

In this international workshop, to promote understanding of various current activities of LCA application to organization, world major players in this area will introduce their individual activities/initiatives in Session 1: Mr. Cynthia Cummis from WRI; Mr. Rana Pant from EC-JRC; Mr. Yuki Yasui from UNEP Finance Initiative (developing Financial Sector Guidance of Scope 3 Standard); Mr. Matthias Finkbeiner from ISO/TC207/SC5 (developing LCA for organization), and; Dr. Julia Martinez-Blanco from UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative (an author of “LCA of Organizations” guidance).

In Session 2, companies that actively make efforts for this area will introduce their case studies. Finally in Session 3, we will hold a panel discussion with all of the participants for pursing for harmonization of individual activities.
We hope that many of you will be able to join us to share useful time.

This workshop will be organized by Mizuho Information & Research Institute, Inc. on as part of the “project to respond to international trends of visualizing environmental footprint” commissioned by METI (the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan) and the “project to study methods to quantify greenhouse gases in supply chain” commissioned by MOE (the Ministry of Environment of Japan).

Workshop information

Timetable

*Each presentation material is posted on this web site by permission of speakers

Session 1: Current status of Assessment on Environmental aspects of Organization (Company) activities (Moderator: Prof. Atsushi Inaba)

Session 2: Case studies of application of LCA to organization

Session 3: Discussion

*Programs may change without notice.

Contact information (Secretariat)

Masahiko Shibata (Mr.), Reiko Kitabayashi (Ms.)
Environment & Energy Division 2
Mizuho Information & Research Institute, Inc.
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +81-(0)3-5281-5285