Metrics for Sustainability Assessment in European Process Industries

Project Information

MEASURE

Grant agreement ID: 636816

DOI

10.3030/636816

Project closed

EC signature date 6 November 2014

Start date 1 January 2015

End date 31 March 2016

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Advanced manufacturing and processing

Total cost

€ 499 875,00

EU contribution

€ 499 875,00

Coordinated by

FRIEDRICH-SCHILLER-UNIVERSITÄT JENA
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MEASURE (Metrics for Sustainability Assessment in European Process Industries)

Reporting period: 2015-01-01 to 2016-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Challenges in Today´s Sustainability Implementation in European Process Industries
The European process industry has to defend its technological leadership in faster changing markets and increasing competition. Thus, the factories of the future need to be highly energy and raw material efficient. A lot of work has been done in the 7th framework programme to support this urgent need for intensified processes including process design supporting sustainability assessments. However, this has not been done in a standardised manner, allowing for a comparison of project´s outcome.

Our Aim
The aim of the CSA MEASURE was to provide support and guidance, how to reach the H2020 SPIRE Public Private Partnership goals on reduction in fossil energy intensity, non-renewable, primary raw material intensity and greenhouse gas emissions in the most effective way. MEASURE delivered a roadmap how to evaluate and quantify the success of SPIRE PPP in terms of more sustainable processes in a standardised, comparative way. Benefiting from the strong support of our cross-sectorial Advisory Board, the impact of the MEASURE roadmap shall outreach the H2020 SPIRE programme towards harmonised standards for sustainability assessment in the entire European process industry.

Our Cross-sectorial Competences
MEASURE brought together leading European process industries in chemistry, consumer goods, steel, automotive, non-ferrous metals, and waste with well-known research centres, and academic experts with profound and complementing expertise on sustainability assessment with regulators and standardisation bodies.

The Impact of MEASURE and its Lead Users
MEASURE provided the fundament to reach the overall SPIRE PPP goals to optimise industrial processing, reducing the consumption of raw materials and energy and by minimising waste under the given thresholds. Lead users will be innovative companies of all sectors of European process industry as well as academic partners supporting their maintenance of leadership in enabling technologies and advanced materials & processes.

The MEASURE Implementation Plan
The phases of work included a detailed, cross-sectorial stakeholder analysis on the use of existing sustainability metrics and decision support tools for different goals, stages and data availabilities; an in-depth dialogue between the MEASURE core team and the Advisory Board during two organised workshops and as final outcome, a harmonised roadmap towards universally accepted and standardised tools for environmental, economic and social assessment in process industries over the whole value chain. Implementation was ensured by open access publication of the roadmap and several detailed background documents as well as its widespread promotion in the existing network of the MEASURE partners including UNEP/SETAC, ISO, WBCSD, FAO, CEFIC, SusChem, PlasticsEurope, FEFANA, World Steel, Eurofer, EFCE, RSC, GDCh, JRC ISPRA.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

All MEASURE partners were highly engaged to meet the aims within the short timeframe of the project. The identification and analysis of stakeholders of sustainability assessment, the development of a surveys on the specific aspects of the life cycle assessment methodology, coding and management of the 2nd survey, the preparation of two MEASURE stakeholder workshops, and a gap analysis of the use of life cycle methodology in the processing industries etc. were actions taken during the project.
The main objective of Evonik and Procter & Gamble Services Company in cooperation with the academic partners University of Jena and University of Cambridge was to deal with cross-sectorial issues when several actors of the supply chain are cooperating and to exchange with other project partners about some specific methodological issues especially relevant for the sector “Chemistry and Consumer Goods” (assessment of bio-based materials, assessment of toxicity among other topics). A main objective was also to encourage for a better documentation when LCA data are exchanged over the value-chain.
The long experience of Technical University of Berlin related to LCA in the automotive and metals sector has been used for the development of the analysis of the current state of Sector B in cooperation with thyssenkrupp. A key priority for thyssenkrupp Steel Europe was the identification of already existing common rules and tools in industrial supply chains as well as the open points for which such agreements are still missing and further research has to be conducted. The partners University of Gent and University of Manchester focussed instead on the specifics of the waste management sector.
In two workshops, MEASURE brought together relevant sustainability representatives and stakeholder perspectives (small and large scale industry, industrial associations, standardisation bodies, experts from the LCSA community, etc.) and enabled detailed and profound expert exchange. The MEASURE consortium further organised a short course at the LCM 2015 conference and a public dissemination event to communicate about the challenges for cross-sectorial cooperation and the recommendations developed by the MEASURE team.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The major outcome of the MEASURE project is the “Roadmap for sustainability assessment in European process industries”. At this, a broad range of cross-sectorial or specific concepts and open issues addressed by different stakeholders, industrial and scientific organisations, academia, standardisation bodies, and policy-makers is presented and recommendations for key actions and R&D needs are provided.
At this, MEASURE defined standards for sustainability assessments of innovation projects in the process industry and beyond. The MEASURE roadmap provides a fundament to “measure” to what degree the funded projects within the SPIRE project portfolio contribute towards the objectives of the programme.
The proposed indicators and actions will be tested by the members of the MEASURE team in practice and potentially in future SPIRE project activities (additional funding or inclusion in project deliveries of funded technical projects necessary). Therefore a broad European wide roll-out is already initiated which will be aligned by other measures such as conference talks, publications, lectures and input into relevant business associations and international standardisation bodies. The members of the MEASURE consortium have a broad range of contacts for multiplication. To give an example, the MEASURE coordinator is invited to give a speech about the MEASURE outcomes during the German Federation Congress on EU funding in June 2016. Additionally, the results can directly be fed into the European Product and Organisational Environmental Footprint pilot discussions – offering industry proven methodological support where the pilots show deficiencies of the proposed PEF and OEF programs.
Each MEASURE partner made a commitment to apply the agreed sustainability assessment metrics and tools defined in the roadmap in all SPIRE PPP projects he or she will take part in future H2020 projects.

Impression from the 1st MEASURE workshop