use of life cycle thinking in long-term waste management strategy has been called ... to life cycle thinking (LCT) as a key concept to be incorporated into national ...
A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR LIFE CYCLE THINKING IN TRANSITIONS TOWARD SUSTAINABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT
David Lazarevicab, Nicolas Bucletc and Nils Brandta a
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden
b
Université de Technologie de Troyes, France
c
Université Pierre-Mendès-France, France
ABSTRACT As society continues its pursuit of sustainable development the importance of resource efficiency and waste management has become increasingly recognised. As a consequence, a number of European policies implement the concept of life cycle thinking in order to reduce the negative environmental impact of waste management systems. The benefit of life cycle thinking is that its holistic perspective allows one to account for the environmental impacts or benefits of not only the waste system but connected systems - such as energy and material production. However, the current use of life cycle thinking in long-term waste management strategy has been called into question regarding its ability to facilitate a transition toward sustainable waste management. This paper presents a conceptual framework for the use of life cycle thinking as an element in sustainability transitions. It draws on transition theory and the concept of conventional regimes (economics of conventions) in order to provide a new perspective on the relationship between life cycle thinking and sustainable waste management.
1. Introduction The linear flow of resources through society is hardly a sustainable practice. The negative environmental and health impacts associated with the treatment and management of waste represent a burden to both society and the environment. Although waste is essentially a result of production and consumption patterns, the socio-technical systems that exist to manage this waste require change if the efficient and effective use of waste as a resource is to be achieved. In this context, the vision of a ‘recycling society’ has been established at the European level as a normative long-term vision for future waste management systems (European Commission 2005a). At the same time, the European Commission (EC) has referred to life cycle thinking (LCT) as a key concept to be incorporated into national waste policy and strategy – this aims to reduce the negative environmental impacts of waste and resource management (European
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Commission 2005a). LCT is a concept1 which seeks to identify potential improvements to goods and services in the form of lower environmental impacts and reduced resource use throughout all life cycle stages (European Commission 2010). Although the holistic view provided by the life cycle approach is generally accepted as “the “right” and “obvious” way to deal with environmental issues” (Heiskanen 2000a, 42), the current implementation of LCT in terms of policy and long-term strategy, especially at the European level, may not necessarily guide waste management regimes toward a ‘recycling society’. This paper aims to make progress in understanding how LCT can be used to aid the coordination of a transition toward sustainable waste management. This paper presents an initial attempt to construct a conceptual framework drawing on transition theory and the concept of conventional regimes in order to give a new perspective on the relationship between LCT and sustainable waste management. In this context, we suggest integrating LCT as an element in the transition toward a ‘recycling society’. This entails its use as a tool to test the legitimacy of waste hierarchy2 as a waste management principle, and in the eco-design of system innovations in order to assist in the development of a technological trajectory of ascending the levels of the waste hierarchy.
2. Theoretical considerations 2.1. Transition management – guiding action toward a normative long-term goal Transitions are structural societal changes resulting from economic, cultural, technological, institutional and environmental developments, which both influence and strengthen each other - usually taking place over a period of 25-50 years (Rotmans 2005). Transition management “... is concerned with the functioning of the variation-selection-reproduction process: creating variety informed by visions of the sustainability, creating new paths, and reflectively adapting institutional frameworks and regimes” (Kemp and Zendel 2007, 27). The goal of transition management for sustainability is to orient sociotechnical and political dynamics to sustainability goals chosen by society (Kemp and Loorbach 2003). Kemp and Loorback (2003) propose that the transition process starts with the creation of a long-term goal in response to a problem. An example is the sustainable use of resources due to resource scarcity and increasing consumption. Subsequently, the creation of a guiding normative vision is useful for mobilising actors and helps to serve as the basis for coordination in achieving a long-term goal. Indeed there may be multiple guiding visions and multiple transition paths for each vision (Kemp and Loorbach 2003). Transition paths are routes toward the final image. These transition paths incorporate interim goals and objectives which evolve and become more concrete the closer they are to the present (Kemp and Loorbach 2003). These guiding visions, transition paths and practical experiments (which explore transition paths) form a transition agenda.
1Encompassing:
(1) life cycle assessment (LCA): the analytical tool used to compile and evaluate the inputs, outputs and potential environmental impacts of a product/service system, and (2) life cycle management (LCM): a business management concept based on life cycle considerations, used in the development and application of sustainability strategies (European Commission 2010). 2 Prevention, before reuse, before recycling, before energy recovery and disposal as a last resort.
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Geels notes that for transitions to occur, the socio-technical regime - the “‘deep-structure’ or grammar of ST-systems” (Geels 2004, 905) linked together by semi-coherent sets of rules (Geels 2004) – requires change. Building on science and technology studies (STS), evolutionary economics, structuration theory and neo-institutional theory, an understanding of the role of rules and institutions is explicated modifying Barley and Tolbert’s (1997) recursive diachronic model of structural change and reproduction (Geels and Schot 2010). Neo-institutional theory is used in order to overcome the lack of agency1 in evolutionary approaches. However, one can still find themselves in an evolutionary approach considering the adoption of rules is the result from a somewhat unexplained “community selection” (Geels and Schot, 2010:51). The fact that rules are related to actors games and to power relationship between actors (which does not mean that the result, the adopted rule, is exactly or even broadly what actors intended to achieve) is therefore uninfluential in this approach.
2.2. Conventional regimes – conventions guiding the coordination of action In relation to modes of coordination aiding in the transition toward sustainability, the economics of conventions and the concept of conventional regimes may allow us to better understand how actors coordinate their action, and how the concept of LCT may be used in the coordination of action toward sustainable waste management. Conventions are collective agreements, tacit or explicit, which allow agents to coordinate their activities (Boyer and Orléan 1994). These agreements concern the validity of several values, rules, norms and ways to behave in society that guide interaction. These values, rules, norms and behaviours are conventional in the sense that no scientific evidence exists in order to explain the choice of one convention over another (Buclet 2011). At a strategic level, Sugden (1989) highlights two salient properties of conventions: (1) they are self-reinforcing in the sense that each agent abides by certain conventions when he expects others to abide by the same convention, and (2) they are evolutionary stable strategies in a game of at least two actors, whereby in the case of one or more strategies, if one strategy is followed by the majority of agents, it cannot be evicted by other strategies. Even if a competing rule or strategy is more efficient from the perspective of coordination, it is unlikely that this rule or strategy will replace the existing convention. Buclet (2011) expands on this notion of convention to include not just rules but principles and values that coordinate social interaction and form the basis for coordination in a regime. Buclet (2011, 66-67) defines a conventional regime as corresponding to a “moment in time and space during which a given human community is behaving according to several principles which orient individuals’ behaviours within the community. ... These principles which are of a conventional nature, rest on the shared values of individuals composing the community”. The notion of conventional nature is required to explicitly demonstrate that these values and principles are not naturally defined - neither inherent to human behaviour nor complex societies (Buclet 2011). Conventional principles are reified by
1“Agency in the transformation of socio-technical regimes is the ability to intervene and alter the balance of selection pressures or adaptive capacity” (Smith et al. 2005, 1503)
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conventional objects1 (technical objects whose way of being used depends on conventional principles) which translate these conventional principles into tangible references for every day actors. In the steadiest cases of conventional regimes, principles are naturalised by the way actors represent to themselves how a human society is working and should, in any case, work. When referring to these conventional objects, each actor will reduce the uncertainty of future interaction resulting in two primary benefits: (1) decreased uncertainty as to the behaviour of others increases the capability to act according to these objects, and (2) the possibility for collective actions are increased at the societal level (Buclet 2011). Both principles and objects are reference points promoting the coordination of action. Conventional regimes are built on a number of conventional principles and values. Regime stability results from the conventional nature of the principles and values which coordinate individual and collective action within the socio-technical system. How do conventional regimes evolve? Regimes are regularly submitted to moments where the conventional principles are challenged. In that case they might (1) not be affected by those challenges and therefore reinforced, (2) be affected by challenges but be able to evolve through more or less an important modification of the way conventional objects are being used and the way conventional principles are interpreted, or (3) be severely affected by challenges and therefore weakened. Principles may be replaced and, in that case, regimes are strongly modified or replaced by a more efficient (or consensual) regime. Boltanski and Thévenot (1991) provide an elaborate framework for the justification of arguments in such tests of legitimacy.
3. Previous waste management transitions in Europe 3.1. Waste management transitions in Europe Recently, several studies have been undertaken on waste management transitions (Loorbach 2007; Parto et al. 2007; Raven 2007; Kemp 2007; Kemp et al. 2007; Geels and Kemp 2007), fulfilling the role of case studies illustrating conceptual developments in transition theory. Likewise, previous studies have been undertaken from the perspective of the economics of conventions in order to understand the evolution of conventional waste management regimes in Europe (Buclet and Godard 2000; Buclet 2002). Parto et al. (2007), based in transition theory, highlight two previous waste management transitions in Holland2 which have occurred since the turn of the 20th century. The first, which is said to have its origins in the mid 19th century having stabilised between 1920 and 1960, and a second which commenced in the early 1970s and which has stabilised by the mid 1990s. The first transition is broadly characterised by the transition from ‘unregulated handling’ to ‘centralised systems’ for disposal, whilst the second transition showed a move from the ‘centralised disposal’ of waste to ‘waste management’ (See Parto et al. (2007) for a detailed description of these transitions).
Such as the colour coded system for waste disposal in Germany (blue – paper, yellow – packaging, brown – organic) 2 Which can be reasonably translated to waste management transitions typical of Northern European countries. 1
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Hafkamp (2002), working from the economics of conventions, also detailed two such transitions at the European level (based on case studies from Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy and Greece). The first, from the ‘old’ regime based on the protection of public health, from the mid 19th century to the end of the 1960s, and the second, an emerging ‘new’ regime based on prevention and closed material cycles, from the early 1970 to the end of the 1990s. These authors note that European waste management may be on the cusp of a new transition, indicated by events that have occurred during the late 1990s/early 2000s. For instance, less formal involvement by governments at the national level (Parto et al. 2007), friction between member state regimes (Hafkamp 2002) and the changing perception of waste.
3.2. Changes in institutions/conventions responsible for change in waste management regimes Both transition theory and the economics of conventions look to explain regime change through the change in the existing structure of rule/institutions/conventions which guide individual and collective action. Parto et al (2007) use institutions (behavioural, cognitive, associative, regulative and constitutive) to understand a series of innovations in the Dutch waste system. Hafkamp (2002) identified several conventional principles of the ‘old’ waste management regime, namely: “the municipality collects the waste; disposal without risk to public health; costs borne by households and businesses (user pays); household and business obligated to participate; and the municipality obligated to receive all waste supplied for disposal” (Hafkamp 2002:12). The ‘new’ regime involved a shift of conventional principles in the waste management regime. The conventional principles at the heart of this regime include: the prevention principle, precautionary principle, polluter pays principle (extended producer responsibility), free trade principle, principle of subsidiarity, proximity principle, and the valorisation principle (operationalised as the waste hierarchy) (Buclet et al. 2002), see Figure 1. Whilst these principles are common at the European level, it is their institutional articulation into political objectives which leads to the variation of technological trajectories of national waste management regimes.
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Transition
Conventional Principles:
Goal:
• Prevention principle • Precautionary principle, • Polluter pays principle (extended producer responsibility), • Free trade principle • Principle of subsidiarity, • Proximity principle, • Valorisation principle (operationalised as the waste hierarchy)
• Protection of human health • Protection of the environment • Sustainable use of natural resources
Conventional Principles:
Transition 3 ?
• Municipality collects waste • Disposal without risk to public health • Costs borne by households and businesses (user pays) • Household and business obligated to participate • Municipality obligated to receive all waste supplied for disposal
Goal:
Transition 2
• Protection of human health • Protection of the environment • Management of natural resources
Goal: • Protection of human health
Transition 1
Pre-1900
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Time Figure 1.
European Waste Management Transitions (Adapted from Parto et al. (2007))
4. Life cycle thinking and the waste hierarchy – The current approach At a strategic level, the life cycle approach is commonly operationalised through LCA and applied in a definitive role to provide an authoritative justification for decision making (Heiskanen 1999). LCA is predominantly applied to waste management in a comparative capacity, whether it be the comparison of waste treatment technologies, the comparison of competing waste management strategies (including a new strategy verse the status quo) or the comparison of policy instruments (e.g., incineration taxes). A prominent example of this comparative application is the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) where LCT is applied in relation to the waste hierarchy: “The following waste hierarchy shall apply as a priority order in waste prevention and management legislation and policy: (a) prevention; (b) preparing for re-use; (c) recycling; (d) other recovery, e.g. energy recovery; and (e) disposal. This may require specific waste streams departing from the hierarchy where this is justified by life-cycle thinking on the overall impacts of the generation and management of such waste.” (Emphasis added) (Council Directive 2008). In this case, life cycle knowledge based on information from LCAs, both from individual studies or collective knowledge built upon numerous previous studies, may be used as a test for the departure of waste streams from the waste hierarchy. Figure 2 illustrates the current use of LCT in the WFD - an approach used to deviate from the waste hierarchy when life cycle based assessment shows the waste hierarchy not to be valid.
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4.1. LCT based analysis as a test for the waste hierarchy In this application of LCA, we can see the principle of the waste hierarchy being challenged - testing its legitimacy as a principle of waste management. This test will result in either: (1) the confirmation of the waste hierarchy, (2) the modification of the interpretation of this principle or the evolution/refinement of the principle itself (for instance, the development of waste hierarchies tailored to specific waste streams, and/or a more detailed hierarchy of technological options), or (3) the rejection of the waste hierarchy and its replacement by another principle. Today, we can see this test of legitimacy taking place. LCA studies are testing the waste hierarchy as to its legitimacy for various waste streams and the interpretation of the waste hierarchy is debated at the policy level (both Member State and EU).
Figure 2.
Current application of LCT in the context of the Waste Framework Directive
In the context of transition management toward a ‘recycling society’, the use of LCT as a justification for the departure of material streams from the waste hierarchy seems somewhat limiting. A primary benefit of the life cycle approach lies in the identification material and energy flows and salient areas of environmental impact. Additionally, consequential analysis attempts to identify the environmental consequences of decisions in both primary systems (such as the waste management system) and secondary systems (such as energy and material production). However, relying on LCA to settle public controversies1 can be limited as they often become focused on the technical arguments2 surrounding certain claims - masking the normative positions in such controversies (Sarewitz 2004). Additionally, the WFD states "Member States shall take into account the general environmental protection principles of precaution and sustainability, technical feasibility and economic viability, protection of resources as well as the overall environmental, human health, economic and social impacts..." (Council Directive 2008). Despite the importance of these issues, using LCT to deviate from the waste hierarchy (in the long-term) may risk the establishment of waste infrastructure with significant sunk costs. This in turn would heighten the potential for technological, behavioural and institutional lock-in of a system that is not congruent with the principles supporting the long-term goal of sustainable waste management.
1Such
as the choice between recycling and incineration with energy recovery, or the resistance to incineration with energy recovery as an alternative to landfill 2 Selection of allocation procedures, definition of system boundaries, definition of functional unit, etc.
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5. Toward a conceptual framework for life cycle thinking in waste management transitions 5.1. Transition framework Kemp and Loorback (2003) note the management of transitions requires a two pronged strategy of: (1) system innovation: a new trajectory of development or transformation through a fundamental change in functional systems and product chains and (2) ‘system improvement’: the improvement of an existing trajectory. This involves not only technical change but also institutional change. In terms of transitions toward sustainable waste management, we propose expanding the use of the life cycle approach to both: (1) coordinate system innovations (which are based on conventional principles and objects in line with the vision of a ‘recycling society’) that fundamentally change the function of waste management - from the primary function of the treatment of waste to the primary function of producing secondary raw materials (SRMs), and (2) foster system improvement of existing technical systems, where the application of LCA is more akin to eco-design - identifying 'hot spots' of environmental impact that would require change in order for recycling to be the preferred technological trajectory. The key components of this framework borrow from transition management; the establishment of a long-term goal, guiding vision, transition paths and interim goals.
5.1.1. Long-term goal At the European level a long-term societal goal for resource and waste management has been explicitly established in the Thematic Strategies on The prevention and recycling of waste(European Commission 2005a) and The sustainable use of natural resources(European Commission 2005b). The EC sets a long term goal of the ‘sustainable use of natural resource’ by means of reducing the environmental impacts generated by the use of natural resources, preventing waste generation and promoting recycling and recovery of waste which can in turn increase the resource efficiency of the economy. Looking at previous waste management transitions in Europe (See Parto et al. (2007)) we can see an evolution in the longterm goals guiding the development of waste management systems - from the protection of human health1, to the protection of human health and the environment2, to the current sustainable use of resources.
5.1.2. Guiding vision A guiding vision is a system image with technological and behavioural components that are appealing and imaginative (Kemp and Loorbach 2003). The EC has established, a long term vision for a ‘recycling society’ that “seeks to avoid waste and uses waste as a resource” (European Commission 2005, 6). In
In the transition from unregulated handling to centralised systems of disposal – between the mid 19th century to the 1960s 2 In the transition from waste disposal to waste management - between the 1960s and 2000 1
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effect, this image establishes a vision of the circular flow of materials within society. Visions guiding sustainability transitions are always under review, but nonetheless drive the transition management process. Refining the ‘recycling society’ has included visions of varying aspirations: from “A society where the overall levels of waste generation are low and trending downwards” to “A society should be based on the principles of efficient use of resources, of prevention and reuse as well as the efficient use of waste once generated” to a society where “the emphasis is the delivery of quality recycling rather than recycling as an end point, the goal is environmental protection and the better use of resources” (IEEP et al. 2010, 101). In fact, there may be alternative visions which influence waste management, such as the vision of a low carbon society. These alternative visions are not mutually exclusive and known collectively as a ‘basket of images’. Alternative visions can be used to coordinate action in the formation of alternative transition paths, producing a competitive selection environment for innovation.
5.1.3. Transition paths The transition toward this long-term goal can be achieved through a number of transition paths. Transition paths are possible routes to achieving these normative images. Transition paths incorporate interim objectives to achieve these images of the future through the improvement of current systems and system innovation (Kemp and Loorback 2003). Multiple transition paths are essential in the transition process. The portfolio management of different configurations (both incremental and radical) of system innovations is necessary to: (1) circumvent lock-in of a sub-optimal ‘one horse’ strategy, and (2) to provide a competitive selection environment where these niche innovations compete for space in the incumbent socio-technical regime. Kemp and Loorback (2003) identify Industrial Ecology (IE) as an example of system innovation1. The following section will focus on IE as one potential transition path. Figure 3 illustrates the conceptual framework described in the preceding section.
1Other
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examples may include, Product Service System, Cultivating Communities, Local Exchange Trading Systems
Long-term * Societal Goal Sustainable use of natural resources
* Requires Reference points for coordination -Conventional Principles - Conventional Objects
Sustainability
Guiding vision ‘Recycling Society’ ‘Low carbon society’ etc ...
Interim Goal
Transition Path*
Concept & Tools*
System Innovation - Industrial Ecology - Product Service Systems - Reverse Logistics System Improvement - of existing systems
LCT/LCA/LCM
Operational objectives * Definitions, Standards/regulations, Prevention plans, Recycling targets,
Time Figure 3.
A life cycle approach to system innovation in waste management (adapted from Kemp and Loorbach 2003)
5.1.4. Interim goals Interim goals are an important part of transition paths. These interim goals are a product of the policy regime. Legally sanctioned regulative instruments explicitly establish the ‘rules of the game’, a game played by actors, firms, suppliers, users, public authorities and scientists. Regulative rules (such as laws, definitions, waste management plans, quantitative targets, standards and financing structures) are a product of the interpretation and institutional articulation of the waste management principles guiding and providing stability in the regime. IE is loosely based on the metaphor of ecosystems, where industrial systems are viewed in terms of material and energy flows. IE exemplifies the need to close energy and material loops, dematerialisation and thermodynamically efficient energy utilization (Ehrenfeld and Gertler 1997). The waste hierarchy has ontological similarity with IE - closing material and energy loops. Hence, making the waste hierarchy an interesting principle in waste management regimes as it provides a reference point for coordination of action toward achieving a ‘recycling society’. IE’s analytical tools include inter alias, LCA and material flow analysis which aid in the design of ideal-typical closed loop systems (Ehrenfeld and Gertler 1997). Does the waste hierarchy equate to sustainable waste management? No. However, the waste hierarchy is more than just a decision making framework. The principle of the waste hierarchy1 guides individual and collective action. The mantra of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ is well known outside the waste management sphere, guiding the waste disposal actions of individuals and collectives. In terms of waste
1The operational version of the valorisation principle and broader sustainability principles (including the prevention principle)
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management strategies, it has been a policy aspiration of many regimes (be they local or national) to move waste management activities up the steps of the waste hierarchy. Indeed, moving up the steps of the waste hierarchy can be seen as an interim goal in the transition to sustainable waste management. Although this is an interim goal, it is important to recognise this principle is subject to challenges (as described above), especially by those actors who may not agree with the principle. In this sense, we may see the waste hierarchy as a principle that guides several operational objectives of waste management regimes, such as definitions, recycling and recovery targets, and waste management plans In terms of sustainability transitions, Figure 4 conceptually represents an alternative use of LCT. In addition to the current use of LCT in testing the legitimacy of the waste hierarchy, LCA is applied to aid in the design of niche SRM supply chains (material recycling) that are favourable from an environmental perspective when compared to energy recovery or disposal. Additionally, LCM is used to coordinate action among actors in the innovation of niche technologies and SRM supply chains which establish a technological trajectory toward a ‘recycling society’.
Figure 4.
The use of LCT from a transition perspective
5.2. Applying the life cycle approach in waste management transitions 5.2.1. System improvement: LCA as an eco-design tool for niche secondary raw material supply chains Moving away from the comparative application of LCA, thereby using LCA to identify ‘hot spots’ of environmental impact in niche SRM supply chains, may allow for the identification of changes required to make recycling the environmentally preferable technological trajectory. The benefit of LCA is its ability to identify the consequences of decisions. LCA may be used to identify system requirements necessary for prevention, re-use or recycling to become the preferred technological trajectory. One example is the virgin material substitution ratio that is required for material recycling to obtain a favourable environmental performance when compared to energy recovery. Additionally, if one was to relocate waste material from energy recovery to material recycling processes, an LCA could inform the choice of the waste stream that would be used to fill incinerator capacity, whilst maintaining recycling as 224
the preferred technological trajectory. However, whilst the LCA may be useful in stimulating system improvement, the 25-50 year temporal frames of transitions may limit the use of quantitative modelling of system improvement due to the radical uncertainty associated with such time frames. Additionally, as the life cycle approach focuses on the ‘improvement’ of product and system services, there also lies the risk of optimising the efficiency of an ineffective system. Notwithstanding these limitations, this approach raises the question of responsibility. Who takes the lead role in such an eco-design process? The challenge in this case is that unlike product design, where the designer has greater responsibility and control for product design, processes in waste management systems are spread throughout the supply chain. One place to start may be the entity which has responsibility of the waste; depending on national conventions this may be the local municipality or a private entity who takes over ownership of the waste when providing waste management services for public authorities. Although these actors may start the transition, due to the diffuse nature of SRM supply chains, principles and conventional reference points (congruent with the principles of the ‘sustainable use of natural resources’) are required in order to coordinate such action. In this instance, LCM may be an interesting strategy to pursue.
5.2.2. System innovation: LCM aiding coordination in the pursuit of a common goal Although IE offers an analytical framework and future vision, it is less concerned with the process and organisation of change required to reach this future vision. Likewise, LCA is concerned with identifying the potential environmental impacts of system improvement, but not the establishment of such change. Heiskanen (2000b, 32) identifies several logics of the life cycle approach, such as “the responsibility for the environmental burden of a system accrues through participation in the flow of materials and energy in its physical life cycle”. Combining life cycle logics and the principles of IE, closing material and energy loops may be one option to coordinate action in the establishment of a technological trajectory toward sustainable waste management. The LCM strategy is based on the concept of LCT and hence the logics and principles of LCT. LCM can aid the coordination of action as certain actors in the product supply chain recognise that the responsibility for the environmental burden of a product system is the collective responsibility of all actors in the product system. An example of coordination though LCM is the GHG1 Protocol Initiative. The GHG Protocol Initiative for corporate accounting and reporting of GHG emissions will soon require the inclusion of indirect emissions which occur along the product chain (Scope 3 emissions accounted utilising a life cycle approach). In certain cases these Scope 3 emissions may be considerably greater than direct emissions (Scope 1) and indirect energy use related emissions (Scope 2). Scope 3 accounting has the potential to develop new actor-networks linked by material and energy flows. Thus the goal to reduce GHG emissions requires both the reduction of Scope 1 & 2 emissions and the collaboration with upstream and downstream actors to reduce Scope 3 emissions.
1
Greenhouse Gas 225
5.2.3. Subsidiarity: Level of implementation As the WDF came into effect on 12 December 2010, how Member States will apply the waste hierarchy is still to be determined. However, in addition to the waste hierarchy having achieved the status of a ‘priority order’1, a number of articles emphasise its importance as a guiding waste management principle. Namely, Articles 28(1) and 29(1) require both waste management plans and waste prevention programmes, respectively, to be established in accordance with the waste hierarchy. Additionally, the principle of subsidiarity is also a concern when applying the waste hierarchy. Applying the waste hierarchy though waste management plans, coupled with European case law2, would require the waste hierarchy to be applied at the administrative level in which the waste management plans apply. Although the goal of many Member State waste management strategies has been to place emphasis on the waste management actives closer to the top of the waste hierarchy3, there has been a very broad interpretation and implementation of the waste hierarchy in various member states (Lazarevic et al. 2010). The new legal status of applying the waste hierarchy as a priority order may, indeed, influence the landscape of European waste management, especially condidering that the hierarchy should be implemented (or LCT used to show justification for the departureof waste streams) at the administrative level. This may have an influence on planning decsions for competent autorities. It is at this level in which industial and territorial ecology transition path experiments should be facilitated.
6. Discussion and Conclusion This framework highlights the use of LCT in three main areas: (1) as a test for the legitimacy of the waste hierarchy principle management, (2) as an eco-design tool for the production of niche SRM supply chains, and (3) as an element which aids in the coordination of actors in the development of niche innovations along a technological trajectory which ascends the levels of the waste hierarchy. Reflecting on transition management, LCT appears to be a potential ‘transition element’ in the transition to sustainable waste management, “elements at each of the three levels (regime, niche, landscape)4 that could link up to create novelties as a potential prelude to a transition" (Elzen et al. 2002, 16-17). These transition elements not only concern technologies, but can include concepts and new forms of embedding technologies and concepts in society. The LCT concept acts as a transition element in the sense that: (1) using LCA as an analytical tool in the eco-design of niche SRM supply chains helps in the establishment of a number of niche innovations where recycling is the preferred technological trajectory, and (2) using LCM to aid the coordination of actors may assist in moving technologies, technology selection environments or niche products (such as new SRMs or new applications of SRMs) from the niche to the regime (main-stream) level.
See Lazarevic et al. (2010) for detail on the evolution of the salience of the waste hiarchy in European waste policy Such as Inter-Environnement Wallonie ASBL v Région wallonne (1997) - Case C-129/96 3For example, the England and Wales 1995 waste strategy ‘Making Waste Work’ (Department of the Environment 1995) places the waste hierarchy as a key objective, yet relatively slow progress has been made in achieving this goal during the past 15 years. 4 The three levels of the multi-level perspective. A niche based model developed as a framework for understanding sustainability transitions which provides an overall view of the dynamics of change in socio-technical systems. 1
2
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A number of models of transition paths exist to help understand how innovations move from the niche to the regime (Geels and Schot 2007). Using the life cycle approach as a transition element may assist system innovations moving from the niche to the regime if the principles guiding the development of niche actives are congruent with the conventional principles of the regime. Systems innovations such as those informed by the concept of IE, closing material and energy loops, are in keeping with the dominant conventional principles of waste management (the precautionary principle, the prevention principle, the valorisation principle). Hence, development and activation of a transition agenda (the long-term goals, transition paths, interim goals and operational objectives) which utilises LCT as a transition element may help facilitate the transition toward sustainable waste management. This paper has made a first attempt at developing a conceptual framework for transitions in waste management regimes by combining the theoretical concepts of transition management and conventional regimes. By extending transition management to include the concepts of conventional regimes and life cycle thinking we may be able to: (1) provide a greater understanding of the role of the waste hierarchy and life cycle thinking in transitions toward sustainable waste management, and (2) utilise the life cycle concept in both system improvement and in the coordination of actors in the development of system innovations which embody the principles of closing material and energy loops. This use of the life cycle approach raises a number of lines of enquiry that will be the focus of further research. More specifically: (1) the salience of conventional principles of waste management regimes, at national and administrative levels, and (2) the characteristics of LCT/LCA that allow it to be used as an effective tool in waste management transitions.
Acknowledgements This study was financially supported by the Veolia Environnement and the Association Nationale de la Recherche et de la Technologie (Convention CIFRE 707/2008).
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