23.5.2022
5.
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
L 144/87
Environmental footprint impact assessment Once the LCI has been compiled, the EF impact assessment (54) shall be carried out to calculate the environmental performance of the product, using all the EF impact categories and models.
EF impact assessment includes four steps: classification, characterisation, normalisation and weighting.
Results of a PEF study shall be calculated and reported in the PEF report as characterised, normalised and weighted results for each EF impact category and as a single overall score based on the weighting factors provided in Section 6.5.2.2.
Results shall be reported for (i) the total life cycle, and (ii) the total life cycle excluding the use stage.
5.1
Classification and characterisation
5.1.1
Classification Classification requires assigning the material/energy inputs and outputs inventoried in the LCI to the relevant EF impact category.
For example, during the classification phase, all inputs/outputs that result in GHG emissions are assigned to the climate change category.
Similarly, those that result in emissions of ozone-depleting substances are assigned to the ozone depletion category.
In some cases, an input or output may contribute to more than one EF impact category (for example, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) contribute to both climate change and ozone depletion).
It is important to express the data in terms of the constituent substances for which characterisation factors (see next section) are available.
For example, data for a composite NPK fertiliser shall be disaggregated and classified according to its N, P, and K fractions, because each constituent element will contribute to different EF impact categories.
In practice, much of the LCI data may be drawn from existing public or commercial LCI databases, where classification has already been implemented.
In such cases, it must be assured, e.g. by the provider, that the classification and linked EF impact assessment pathways correspond to the requirements of the PEF method.
All inputs and outputs inventoried while the LCI is being compiled shall be assigned to the EF impact categories to which they contribute using the classification data made available by the European Commission JRC (55) .
As part of the classification of the LCI, data should be expressed in terms of constituent substances for which characterisation factors are available, as far as possible.
5.1.2
Characterisation Characterisation refers to calculating the magnitude of the contribution of each classified input and output to their respective EF impact categories, and aggregating the contributions within each category.
This is carried out by multiplying the values in the LCI by the relevant characterisation factor for each EF impact category.
The characterisation factors are substance- or resource-specific.
They represent the impact intensity of a substance relative to a common reference substance for an EF impact category (impact category indicator).
For example, when calculating climate change impacts, all GHG emissions inventoried in the LCI are weighted in terms of their impact intensity relative to carbon dioxide, which is the reference substance for this category.
This allows for the impact potential and expression to be aggregated in terms of a single equivalent substance (in this case, CO2 equivalents) for each EF impact category.
All classified inputs and outputs in each EF impact category shall be assigned characterisation factors representing the contribution per unit of input or output to the category, using the provided characterisation factors (56).
EF impact assessment results shall subsequently be calculated for each EF impact category by multiplying the amount of each input/output by its characterisation factor and summing the contributions of all inputs/outputs within each category to obtain a single measure expressed in the appropriate reference units.
(54) The EF Impact Assessment does not intend to replace other (regulatory) methods that have a different scope and objective such as (Environmental) Risk Assessment ((E)RA), site- specific Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) or health and safety regulations at product level or related to safety at the workplace.
In particular, the EF Impact Assessment does not have the objective of predicting if at any specific location at any specific time thresholds are exceeded and actual impacts occur.
In contrast, it describes the existing pressures on the environment.
Thus, the EF Impact Assessment is complementary to other well-proven tools, adding the life- cycle perspective.
(55) http://eplca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/LCDN/developerEF.xhtml (56) Available online at http://eplca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/LCDN/developerEF.xhtml