Author Description

In 2011 the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) published the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook recommendations on the use of Impact Assessment models for use in LCA (EC-JRC, 2011a). This created the basis for the Product and Organisation Environmental Footprint (PEF/OEF) recommendations for impact categories and models as per Recommendation 2013/179/EU on the use of common methods to measure and communicate the life cycle environmental performance of products and organisations (EC, 2013a). This Commission Recommendation is expected to contribute to the Building the Single Market for Green Products (EC, 2013b) by supporting a level playing field regarding the measurement of environmental performance of products and organisations. During the PEF pilot phase (from 2013 to 2018), the model retained and recommended for assessing the impact of elementary flows on freshwater ecotoxicity and human cancer and non-cancer toxicity was the model USEtox® 1.01. However, due to the difficulties encountered in using the model and in interpretation the results, the PEF Technical Advisory Board (TAB) has decided not to include these three impact categories in the list of mandatory impact categories to be used for hotspot analysis and for communication to consumer or to business. The EU Commission Joint Research Centre was then mandated by DG Environment to conduct an in-depth evaluation of the model and data used to calculate characterisation factors (CFs) and to come with a proposal to 1) address the issue reported by the Pilots and 2) increase the number of available characterisation factors. Using the physicochemical and toxicity data available in the REACH, EFSA and PPDB database, and building on the feedback collected during a PEF stakeholder workshop organised in February 2018 and on the preliminary outcomes of the UNEP-SETAC Pellston workshop organised in June 2018 (UNEP- SETAC, 2018), EC-JRC has calculated new freshwater ecotoxicit