Life cycle thinking for assessment of waste and circular economy policy: status and perspectives from EU example

Life cycle thinking methods such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and costing (LCC) were originally developed to assess the performance of products and services (business-making decisions). However, they are increasingly deployed to support policy-making along the entire policy cycle, including via impact assessment (IA) of different policy options. These applications are associated with a number of challenges, mainly related to the dynamic and prospective nature of policy IA, typically forward-looking into 10-20 years ahead. This requires the application of prospective scenario analyses to develop the baseline scenario (business-as-usual), and the alternative scenarios, reflecting the consequences incurred by the implementation of the policy options under study. Such prospective nature of policy IA challenges traditional LCA/LCC practices mostly based on retrospective, static scenarios and datasets. The present study provides an overview of recent IA studies supporting waste policy to show the state-of-the-art and the main challenges associated with the application of life cycle methods in IA, focusing on the most recent EU waste and circular economy policies. Moreover, the study provides an initial guidance for application of life cycle thinking in IA drawing upon the knowledge obtained conducting waste policy IA studies. Key challenges in the field are still to be addressed, and might inspire further research to improve the application of life cycle thinking to policy assessment.

DE LAURENTIIS Valeria;  PATINHA CALDEIRA Carla;  SALA Serenella;  TONINI Davide; 

2024-03-18

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

JRC134981

0956-053X (online),   

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2024.02.037,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC134981,   

10.1016/j.wasman.2024.02.037 (online),