Moberg, Åsa

Title

Assessment of media and communication from a sustainability perspective

Published in

PhD dissertation
Environmental Strategies Research – fms, Department of Urban Planning and Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm 2010.
TRITA-SoM 2010-05
ISSN 1653-6126
ISRN KTH/SoM/10-05/SE
ISBN 978-97-7415-636-2

Abstract

This thesis aims to assess potential environmental impacts of media and communication and to contribute to the development of methods for sustainability assessment. Although the main focus is on printed and electronic media products and environmental impacts, a broader sector analysis is also included and social aspects are discussed. The thesis provides a review of different environmental assessment tools in order to better understand their relationships and the appropriateness of different tools in different situations. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used to assess printed and electronic versions of newspapers, books and invoices. Results of the screening LCAs of newspapers and books indicate that when comparing printed and electronic versions there are benefits and drawbacks for both. For news and books read on e-reading devices with energy efficient e-ink screens, the main environmental impacts in the studies stemmed from the production of the device and partly from disposal, with the latter having the potential to reduce some environmental impacts through recycling of materials. However, there are data gaps regarding the production of the e-reading devices, most notably for the e-ink screen and the waste management of obsolete e-reading devices. Existing data on internet energy use are uncertain. The potential impacts from a hypothetical total change from paper invoices to electronic invoices in Sweden were assessed through a screening consequential LCA regarding greenhouse gas emissions and cumulative energy demand. The results indicate that emissions and energy demand could decrease as a result of a change. The screening LCAs performed indicate that users’ practices could substantially influence the environmental impacts. Key factors which can influence results and comparisons of printed and electronic media products are total use of electronic devices, total use of printed media, amount and type of paper, energy use of electronic devices, potential printing of electronic media, electricity mix, and the system boundaries set for the assessments.

To get a wider perspective, a sector study of the ICT sector and media sector concerning global greenhouse gas emissions and operational electricity use was performed. It was estimated that the contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions in 2007 was roughly 1-2 % for each sector. To assess media and communication products from a sustainability perspective, social aspects should also be covered. The author participated in an international project group on social aspects and LCA, one outcome from which was guidelines for social LCA (S-LCA). In addition to providing guidance for S-LCA, another important role of the guidelines is to facilitate discussions, criticism and proposals for improvement and development of the methodology being developed.

The LCA and sector studies in this thesis are limited to direct and to some extent indirect environmental impacts. Further studies of the environmental impacts of more long-term changes in practices and potential structural changes, as well as potential social impacts, could provide important additional insights. This could increase the possibility of facilitating sustainable practices related to ICT and media.

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List of papers

Paper I
Finnveden G. and Moberg Å. (2005). Environmental systems
analysis methods – an overview. Journal of Cleaner Production 13:1165-
1173.

Paper II
Moberg Å., Johansson M., Finnveden G. and Jonsson A. (2010).
Printed and tablet e-paper newspaper from an environmental
perspective- a screening life cycle assessment. Environmental Impact
Assessment Review 30:3:177-191.

Paper III
Borggren C., Moberg Å. and Finnveden G. Books from an
environmental perspective – Part 1: Environmental impacts of paper
books sold in traditional and internet bookshops. Submitted to
International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

Paper IV
Moberg Å., Borggren C. and Finnveden G. Books from an
environmental perspective – Part 2: e-books as an alternative to
paper books. Submitted to International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

Paper V
Moberg Å., Borggren C., Finnveden G. and Tyskeng S.
Environmental impacts of electronic invoicing. Accepted with
minor revisions by Progress in Industrial Ecology.

Paper VI
Malmodin J, Moberg Å, Lundén D, Finnveden G. and Lövehagen
N. Greenhouse gas emissions and operational electricity use in the
ICT and entertainment & media sectors. Submitted to Journal of
Industrial Ecology.

Paper VII
Benoit C., Norris G.A., Valdivia S., Ciroth A., Moberg Å., Bos U.,
Prakash S., Ugaya C. and Beck T. (2010). The Guidelines for Social
Life Cycle Assessment of products: Just in time! International Journal
of Life Cycle Assessment, Volume 15, Number 2.

Contact asa.moberg@abe.kth.se if you want to order a paper copy of the thesis!

Benoît, C., Norris, G., Valdivia, S., Ciroth, A. Moberg, Å., Bos, U., Prakash, S. Ugaya, C., Beck, T.

Title

The guidelines for social life cycle assessment of products: just in time!

Published in

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. Springer Berlin/Heidelberg 2010.

Abstract

Purpose Authors of different sustainability journals, including authors of articles in past issues of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment have acknowledged the rising interest and the pressing need for a social and socio-economic life cycle assessment methodology and identified challenges in its development and implementation. Social life cycle assessment (LCA) allows identification of key issues, assessing, and telling the story of social conditions in the production, use, and disposal of products. In this article, the United Nations Environment Programme/The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products will be presented.

Aim and scope The guidelines demystifies the assessment of product life cycle social impacts and presents an effective framework representing the consensus of an international group of experts leading research in this field. The guidelines complement those for environmental life cycle assessment and life cycle costing, and by doing so contribute to the full assessment of goods and services within the context of sustainable development. They enable a larger group of stakeholders to engage. Key aspects of the framework and the research needs identified in the guidelines will be summarized.

Conclusions In a globalized world where transparency and information occupies a predominant place and where consumers and companies reach out to shed light on both the brightest and the darkest side of the economy and, when applicable, transform its condition, social LCA brings strong value. At a moment where major companies and initiatives are going forward with using LCA and are trying to track and communicate about the social impacts of their products they are increasingly held accountable for the guidelines for social life cycle assessment arrive just in time to inform their efforts.

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DOI10.1007/s11367-009-0147-8

Moberg, Åsa (KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications)
Picha, Malin (TU – The Swedish Media Association)
Erlandsson-Segerström, Birgitta (TeliaSonera)
Karagianni, Catherine (TeliaSonera)
Malmodin, Jens (Ericsson)
Wiklund, Lennart (Bonnier Group)

Title

Using a life cycle perspective to assess potential social impacts of ICT services – a pre-study.

Published in

Report from the KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, Stockholm.
ISSN:1654-479X
TRITA-SUS 2009:1

Abstract

Buying that new mobile phone may make your life easier, provide continuous access to the net and change your image, but what social impact will your action have on others? Different stakeholders along the life cycle of the mobile phone will be affected, in positive and negative ways. Who is responsible and how can we know the impact?

Handling environmental impact with a life cycle perspective, for example using life cycle assessment (LCA), is today common practice. A similar technique for social impact, social and socio-economic LCA (S-LCA) is under development (Benoit and Mazijn, 2009). The aim of the current pre-study was to consider the use of S-LCA for information and communication technology (ICT) services to learn more about the product and facilitate consideration of social impact in different decision-making situations.

From a company perspective, social responsibility is handled in various ways, often under the heading of CSR, corporate social responsibility. Firstly, the company’s own employees are easily targeted and acted on by providing good working conditions, fair wages and working hours, etc. Considering social impact throughout a product’s life cycle is the next step and here measures and responsibilities are less clear-cut.  How is a product distributed (supply chain), how is it used and how is it finally disposed? Different stakeholders are differently affected, positively and negatively.

Four companies and organisations, all partners in the Centre for Sustainable Communications, took part in this study. They currently have different experiences and degrees of activity regarding social responsibility. The telecommunications companies, Ericsson and TeliaSonera, have started to consider social aspects in their supply chain and for their consumers. Social aspects are not only considered in terms of impact of the company management but also of impact related to products (goods and services). The media organisations (Bonnier Group and the Swedish Media Association) have not handled social aspects to the same extent as the telecommunications companies, but of course their products also give rise to social impact throughout their life cycles.

To enable a discussion on the usability of S-LCA, a simplified test was carried out, inspired by the ongoing work on including social aspects into LCA within the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative (Benoit and Mazijn, 2009). This screening test was based on a selection of published and readily available information on potential social impacts along the life cycle of two defined ICT services. The goal was not to provide an assessment of social impact, but rather to give a rough sketch and reflect on possibilities and limitations with the method. The two ICT services in the test were mobile news and video conferencing, provided by a newspaper company and a telecommunications company respectively. An interesting feature of both these services was that the company providing the service was not providing the electronic device, the hardware platform of the service. This gives one more dimension in the consideration of who is responsible for social impacts with a life cycle perspective.

There was a lot of information available on potential social impact for parts of the respective life cycles. This kind of information is gathered by scientists, NGOs and others. A small share of the information was compiled for the selected stakeholder groups: worker and consumer. This information indicated that there are social impacts all along the life cycle and that these may be positive or negative and of differing magnitude. As stakeholders become aware of the possible negative social impact, increasing engagement from organizations and companies in social responsibility will be requested.

When companies start to consider social impacts in the supply chain, it is expected to be easier to reach the first and second tier of suppliers. However, ILO (2007) has established that the workers at the beginning of the supply chain (farthest away from the end-product) are generally the most disadvantaged. In some cases, handling e-waste is also leading to major negative social impacts. Raw material acquisition and waste management may have large implications on the social impact related to a product, with best case or worst case possibly leading to significantly different results. A life cycle perspective would facilitate identification of improvement potential.  A key question is who is responsible, or rather who will accept responsibility.

As there is information available for parts of the processes and stakeholders throughout the life cycle of the ICT services studied, the question remains how this information can be used by companies providing products for end-consumers. This pre-study indicates that it can be useful to apply a life cycle perspective and compile data in relation to a specific product also when considering potential social impacts. This would facilitate the inclusion of processes and stakeholders for example at the beginning of the life cycle, where impact may be considerable and negative, and make these more visible. Development of S-LCA is thus interesting in order to provide transparent and ‘standardised’ assessments of potential social impact. By providing guidelines or standards, the assessments of social impact could be interpreted and criticised more easily. The possibilities for using S-LCA to increase knowledge and ultimately improve social conditions should be further studied and developed.

In the field of S-LCA there is plenty of future research to be carried out, examples of which are provided by Benoit and Mazijn (2009). One important way of getting more experience and enabling further development of the method and its practice is through performing case studies. ICT products would be an interesting field for this.

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Borggren, Clara & Moberg, Åsa

Title

Pappersbok och elektronisk bok på läsplatta – en jämförande miljöbedömning.

Published in

Report from the KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, Stockholm.
ISSN:1654-479X
TRITA-SUS 2009:2

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Download Appendix 1 (Inventory Data)
Download Appendix 2 (Results)

Contact Åsa Moberg if you want to order a paper copy of the report!

Moberg, Åsa
Johansson, Martin
Finnveden, Göran
Jonsson, Alex

Title

Printed and tablet e-paper newspaper from an environmental perspective — A screening life cycle assessment.

Published in

Environmental Impact Assessment Review, doi:10.1016/j.eiar.2009.07.001

Abstract

Viable alternatives to conventional newspapers, such as electronic papers, e-papers or e-readers, are intended to have many of the qualities of paper, such as reading using reflective light, high resolution, 180° viewing angle. It has been suggested that the environmental impact of e-paper can be lower than for printed and internet-based newspapers. However, in order to find the facts of the matter, a thorough life cycle perspective covering raw material acquisition, production, use and disposal should preferably be used to study the environmental performance of the different products. A screening life cycle assessment was performed to describe the potential environmental impacts of two product systems; printed on paper and tablet e-paper newspapers. Results show that the most significant phase of the life cycle for both product systems was the production of substrate or platform. Accordingly, key aspects that may affect the resulting environmental performance of newspaper product systems were for the printed newspaper number of readers per copy and number of pages per issue and for the tablet e-paper newspaper lifetime and multi-use of the device. The printed newspaper in general had a higher energy use, higher emissions of gases contributing to climate change and several other impact categories than the tablet e-paper newspaper. It was concluded that tablet e-paper has the potential to decrease the environmental impact of newspaper consumption. However, further studies regarding the environmental impact of production and waste management of electronic devices and internet use, as well as more comprehensive assessment of toxicological impacts are needed. As the data on the electronic devices becomes more comprehensive this may prove to be a major limitation of electronic newspaper systems. Developers are suggested to strive towards minimisation of toxic and rare substances in production.

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Andrews, E. S., Barthel, L-P., Beck, T., Benoit, C., Ciroth, A., Cucuzzella, C., Gensch, C-O., Hebert, J., Leasge, P., Manhart, A., Mazeau, P., Mazijn, B., Methot, A-L., Moberg, Å., Norris, G., Parent, J., Prakash, S., Reveret, J-P., Spillemaeckers, S., Ugaya, C., Valdivia, S. and Weidema B. Benoit C. and Mazijn, B. (Eds).

Title

Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products. Social and socio-economic LCA guidelines complementing environmental LCA and Life Cycle Costing, contributing to the full assessment of goods and services within the context of sustainable development.

Published in

UNEP-SETAC Life-Cycle Initiative, 2009.
ISBN: 9789280730210

Abstract

The Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products provides a map, a skeleton and a flash light for stakeholders engaging in the assessment of social and socio-economic impacts of products life cycle. First, the S-LCA Guidelines provides a map, which describes the context, the key concepts, the broader field in which tools and techniques are getting developed and their scope of application. The map is important because it relates to history, initiatives and ideas that are both molding the S-LCA technique and essential to its broad application.

Shared concerns about the state and sustainability of environmental, economic and social dimensions of today’s and tomorrow’s world are expressed through the concept of Sustainable Development. The journey towards sustainability finds sustainable production and consumption at its very heart. It also relates to the social responsibility of organizations and the objective to improve social and environmental performances along with sustained economic profitability -all in the perspective to contribute notably to greater human well-being.

Because it is holistic, systemic and rigorous, Life Cycle Assessment is the preferred tool when it comes to access information about potential and real impacts of products life cycle. Life cycles of products involve material, energy and economic flows. They are also made of stories about production and consumption impacts on the workers, the local communities, the consumers, the society and all value chain actors. Second, the S-LCA Guidelines provides a skeleton. It presents key elements to consider and provide guidance for the goal and scope, inventory, impact assessment and interpretation phases of a social life cycle assessment. The S-LCA Guidelines provide the necessary basis for the development of databases and the design of softwares that will ease the practice of S-LCA. The skeleton is important because it is a foundation on which a larger group of stakeholders can engage.

The framework detailed in the S-LCA Guidelines is in line with the ISO 14040 and 14044 standards for Life Cycle Assessment. Adaptations for the consideration of social and socio-economic issues are described in the framework. It proposes a two-fold classification of social impacts: by stakeholder categories and impact categories. A set of subcategories, which are social and socio-economic issues of concerns, to be used in S-LCA are presented.

Third, the S-LCA Guidelines provide a flash light that highlights areas where further research is needed. Other publications shall follow these Guidelines, presenting details of the methodology and further developments notably in regard to Impact assessment. A flash light is important to enable researchers and practitioners to identify rapidly where additional efforts should be invested. It also helps to prevent the use of the technique for applications that would not be appropriate considering its current state of development such as comparative assertion communicated to the public. Further resources will be made available to the public on the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative web site.

Social Life Cycle Assessment is a technique available to account for stories and inform systematically on impacts that otherwise would be lost in the vast and fast moving sea of our modern world. May it help stakeholders to effectively and efficiently engage to improve social and socio-economic conditions of production and consumption.

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Moberg, Åsa
Johansson, Martin
Finnveden, Göran
Jonsson, Alex

Title

Screening environmental life cycle assessment of printed, web based and tablet e-paper newspaper.

Published in

Report from the KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, Stockholm, 2009 (Second edition).
TRITA-SUS 2007:1
ISSN: 1654-479X

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Moberg, Åsa
Hedberg, Leif
Henriksson, Greger
Räsänen, Minna
Westermark, Mary

Title

Hållbarhetsbedömning av en medierad tjänst – en pilotstudie (Swedish only)

Published in

Report from the KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, Stockholm.
TRITA-SUS 2008:1
ISSN:1654-479X

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Moberg, Å., Borggren, C., Finnveden, G. and Tyskeng, S.

Title

Effects of a total change from paper invoicing to electronic invoicing in Sweden. A screening life cycle assessment focusing on greenhouse gas emissions and cumulative energy demand.

Published in

Report from the KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, Stockholm 2008.
TRITA-SUS 2008:3
ISSN:1654-479X

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