Glossary
Circular Footprint Formula (CFF)
The CFF is developed by the European Commission and is part of PEF. It is a tool used to allocate the environmental burdens and benefits of recycled content, recyclability, disposal, and energy recovery. The CFF helps us understand how to credit a certain product in respect to environmental impact. For example, to enhance circularity in both the production and end-of-life phase of products, the CFF determines that the benefit from using recycled materials must be devided in two portions. One that is given when using recycled materials and one that is given if the product is recycled at the end-of-life.
CO2eq
When talking about climate changes, many of us tend to talk only about CO2. But that is not an accurate representation of climate emissions, since CO2 is not the only driver for rising temperatures. There are a number of other gases and effects that contribute to global warming as for example methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) and the clearing of forest areas. All the gases and effects are quantified in one single metric called CO2eq (CO2 equivalents).
Design for Disassembly
Design for Disassembly means that a product is designed to be taken apart without using any special tools. It enables easier reparations if a part brakes and needs to be replaced. It also allows for disassembly and sorting of materials for recycling at end-of-life.
Data Quality Requirements (DQR)
DQR is a framework or methodology used to establish criteria for assessing and ensuring the quality of data. Data quality is essential in various fields, such as data analysis, research, decision-making, and system development. DQR helps define the characteristics and properties that data must possess to meet specific quality standards. These requirements typically cover aspects like accuracy, completeness, consistency, timeliness, validity, reliability, and relevance. DQR works to identify weaknesses in datasets, and thus where data needs to be improved. An LCA’s ability to reflect a real-world scenario is linked to its DQR.
By utilizing DQR, we can ensure that the applied data is fit for purpose, reliable, and of sufficient quality to create trustworthy calculations on your products. Målbar continuously evaluate data against the defined requirements and rules.
Electricity mix
The electricity mix shows the proportion of electricity generated by various power sources in a specific region, country, continent or worldwide. These power sources can be a mix of; nuclear, thermal energy (fuel oil, natural gas and coal), hydroelectric, solar, wind and biofuel.
LCA
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a methodology to calculate the environmental burden of a product or a service. In the calculation, the potential environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of a product or service are being evaluated.
Mono-material
Material made of only one material in contrast to composites that are made up by a mix of different materials such as a polymer (plastic) material and a strengthener such as glass fiber. Mixed materials are often difficult or impossible to recycle in opposition to mono-materials.
New waste
Industrial waste material that is collected and reused in its existing shape in other productions.
Normalization
The process of converting different categories, such as the environmental impact categories, into a common reference system. Normalization allows for comparison between results measured in different units.
PEF
The European Commission has developed the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology to streamline the calculation of environmental impacts of a product. It contains 16 categories of the most important environmental impacts. The sum of these can be expressed in a single number reflecting the product’s overall environmental performance – the PEF score.
The methodology has a full lifecycle approach. This means that PEF stipulates rules for the LCA calculations from the extraction of raw materials, through production and use, to the disposal process at the end of product life.
The aim from The Commission is to harmonise the LCA method, enabling comparisons between the actual environmental impacts of products. This can help prevent greenwashing or (unintentionally) misleading green claims from companies.
From a consumer perspective, the PEF regulations should make it easier to make better informed decisions about the products they intend to buy.
PEF single score
A PEF single score refers to the overall environmental performance of a product. The score is obtained by adding up all the normalized and weighted results of each environmental impact category.
Recycling
Materials from used products or new waste that are broken down or in other ways lose their shape are recycled materials. An example of reycycling is when plastic bottles are collected, cleaned, remelted into granules and used again for new plastic products.
Residual mix
The European Commission has defined the residual mix as an electricity mix where the amount of energy originating from green energy certificates are subtracted from the electricity mix. This is done in order to avoid double counting of green energy. PEF LCA’s use residual mix for the calculation of electricity emissions originating from production.
Reuse
Reused products refer to used stuff, like clothes, toys, and electronics that are resold or given to new owners and in that way continue their use phase without changing shape. This also applies if the clothes are mended, if the electronics are repaired or if the toys get new batteries.
Reused materials are also called New Waste and consist of for example production waste in the form of left-over materials.
Take back system
When a company makes a system to take back their own products from customers, when they no longer need or want them. The company can then restore or repair the products and resell them or dontate them to charity.
Weighting
The process of evaluating and determining the relative importance of different categories, such as the environmental impact categories. Some of these are considered more urgent, or more precise, or having a broader impact than others, hence they are weighted accordingly.