Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Labeling Consultancy

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) The Life Cycle Assessment is a method used to detect environmental impacts, report them and monitor them during different stages of a product’s or service’s full life cycle starting from the extraction of the raw material from mines to production, shipment, leverage by the end user and ultimately its disposal. The Life Cycle Assessment provides the following:

Assessment of the environmental impacts of the changes that a certain product or service undergoes,

Qualitative and quantitative assessment and management of the possible positive/negative impacts of alternative process or materials,

Providing ground and/or comparison for the improvement of the existing processes,

Knowledge about the different stages’ energy and resource needs or how much pollutants each stage will produce,

Collecting the right information to serve the decision-making processes over clean production, protection of natural resources, increase of productivity,

Collecting necessary information for the environmental labeling, the preparation of an environmental declaration/statement or environmental product description.

The Life Cycle Assessment approach is crucial for the institutions’ transition process to the ISO 14001:2015 standard. SEEM offers services of Life Long Assessment approach implementation and training for employees during the transition to ISO 14001:2015 standard. SEEM; with its staff of experts in specific fields, provides consultancy and training services on Life Long Assessment approach in accordance to the ISO14040 and ISO 14044 standards. ISO 14024 – Type I Environmental Labeling Environmental labeling is a multiple-criteria based, third party program that awards a license that authorizes the use of environmental labels on products indicating overall environmental preferability of a product within a particular product category based on life cycle considerations. Since the criteria used in this system are based on the total of environmental impacts of a product full life cycle; these labels can also be considered as perfection labels allowing consumers to choose the most environmentally-conscious products. The European Union’s “Eco Label”, the “Nordic Eco Label” also known as Scandinavian Swan, and the world’s first ecolabel “Blue Angel” launched in Germany are labels included in this category. The Ministry of Environment and Urbanization’s 2013-2017 period strategic plan includes ÇETAY (Environmental Labeling Infrastructure Project) and is due to complete its certification system by the end of 2017. Within this framework, products and services will be awarded with environmental awareness label. SEEM; with its staff of experts in specific fields, provides consultancy and training services in the field of environmental labeling. ISO 14021 – Type II Self-Declared Environmental Claims The Type II labeling program rest upon the self-declaration of claims. The data provided must be verifiable and transparent. But there is no restriction of third party verification. Cases in which manufacturers self-declare their environmental statement and criteria are included in this category. SEEM; with its staff of experts in specific fields, provides consultancy and training services in the field of environmental labeling. ISO 14025 – Type III Environmental Declarations Type III environmental declarations provide comparable information regarding environmental performance of products sharing the same functions, based on their life cycle assessment. These declarations:

Rely on the independently verified life cycle assessment data, the life cycle inventory analysis data or information modules and with additional environmental information when applicable. All with compatibility to ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards.

Are developed according to previously assessed parameters.

These declarations are subject to a program manager such as a company or group of companies, an industrial sector or trade association, state institutions or organizations, independent scientific institution or other institution. SEEM; with its staff of experts in specific fields, provides consultancy and training services in the field of area of environmental labeling. Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) allows consumers to acquire information about the environmental impacts of the products and services they purchase. EPD is an efficient marketing tool identifying the environmental extent of a product or service. By controlling a product’s or a service’s potential environmental impacts during its full life cycle, EPD aims at continuous improvement of performance. Environmental Product Declarations (EDP) is a verified warrant/certificate reporting LCA data and other related ISO 14025 data according to international standards. SEEM; with its staff of experts in specific fields, provides consultancy and training services in the field of Type III – Environmental Product Declarations.