Table of contents
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Table of contents
Introduction ... 1
General background and justification ... 1
Research goals ... 1
Research framework ... 2
Structure ... 2
Background and State of the Art ... 3
1.1 Life cycle assessment – Background and foundations ... 3
1.1.1 Development and today’s applications ... 3
1.1.2 Basic principles ... 5
1.1.3 Four methodological phases of LCA ... 6
1.1.4 Data quality assessment... 8
1.1.5 Scenario analysis in LCA ... 8
1.1.6 Multifunctional processes ... 8
1.1.7 Attributional and consequential LCA ... 10
1.1.8 Process, input-output and hybrid LCA ... 12
1.1.9 Impact assessment methods ... 14
1.1.10 Alternative approaches: ecosystem accounts ... 17
1.2 Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment ... 19
1.2.1 Introductory remarks- Production and consumption focus ... 19
1.2.2 Case studies ... 20
1.2.3 Methodological developments in the field of Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment ... 23
1.2.4 Role of input-output models in the policy-making process ... 37
1.3 Belgian and Walloon case studies ... 41
1.3.1 Production-based inventories ... 41
1.3.2 Consumption-based inventories ... 45
1.4 Summary and conclusions ... 49
Belgian and Walloon context ... 51
2.1 Territorial aspects ... 51
2.2 Socio-demographic aspects ... 52
2.3 Production and consumption ... 54
2.3.1 Gross domestic product ... 54
2.3.2 Key sectors in the Belgian economy ... 54
2.3.3 Household expenditures ... 56
2.4 Legal and political framework ... 58
2.4.1 Belgian context - Environmental competences... 58
2.4.2 Environmental strategy of Wallonia... 59
2.5 Summary and conclusion ... 62
Data and method ... 63
3.1 Outline ... 63
3.2 Selection and description of data ... 66
3.2.1 Data needs ... 66
3.2.2 Data selection ... 68
3.2.3 General compilation principles of economic and environmental accounts ... 70
3.2.4 Regional economic and environmental accounts ... 71
3.2.5 Global economic and environmental accounts (Exiobase) ... 76
3.2.6 Summary and conclusions ... 79
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3.3.1 Definition of the final table’s format ... 82
3.3.2 Disaggregation procedure (regional accounts) ... 86
3.3.3 Sector disaggregation (regional accounts) ... 91
3.3.4 Additional data treatment (regional accounts 2003 and 2007) ... 100
3.3.5 Regionalisation procedure of national environmental data (Exiobase) and conversion to SimaPro format 103 3.3.6 Final layout of environmental extension tables ... 117
3.3.7 Discussion of the data treatment procedure ... 118
3.4 Calculation of environmentally extended input-output tables and input-output analysis ... 119
3.4.1 Calculation of environmentally extended tables ... 119
3.4.2 Presentation of the environmentally extended multi-regional tables ... 120
3.4.3 Environmentally extended input-output analysis ... 121
3.5 Impact assessment ... 124
3.5.1 Choice of method ... 124
3.5.2 Description of ReCiPe ... 125
3.5.3 Recognition of inventory data by ReCiPe ... 134
3.6 Sensitivity, uncertainty and scenario analyses ... 135
3.6.1 Sensitivity analysis ... 136
3.6.2 Uncertainty analysis ... 136
3.6.3 Scenario analyses ... 138
Results and discussion... 141
4.1 Trends in regional production and consumption ... 141
4.1.1 Development of regional economic activities ... 141
4.1.2 Development of direct emissions from regional economic activities ... 144
4.1.3 Development of household consumption expenditure ... 146
4.1.4 Regional variation in consumption... 147
4.1.5 Development of direct emissions from households ... 148
4.1.6 Summary ... 151
4.2 Regional comparison: Environmental impacts from production and consumption ... 152
4.2.1 Impacts from total regional production ... 153
4.2.2 Impact intensities of regional production ... 157
4.2.3 Impacts from total household consumption ... 160
4.2.4 Impact intensity of regional consumption ... 165
4.2.5 Summary and discussion- regional impacts from production and consumption ... 169
4.3 Environmental impacts from Walloon production ... 171
4.3.1 Impact intensities and total impacts of Walloon production ... 171
4.3.2 Detailed sector analysis ... 176
4.4 Scenario analyses ... 182
4.4.1 Increased household consumption of regionally produced products... 182
4.4.2 Low climate impact consumption scenario ... 184
4.4.3 Increased recycling scenario ... 185
4.4.4 Summary and discussion ... 187
4.5 Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis ... 187
4.5.1 Impact assessment with uncertainty ranges ... 188
4.5.2 Uncertainty in comparative assessments ... 189
4.5.3 Sensitivity analysis (Impact assessment method) ... 191
4.5.4 Sensitivity analysis (Partitioning method) ... 194
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Conclusions and outlook ... 197
5.1 Relevance of the chosen approach and perspectives ... 197
5.1.1 Life cycle thinking ... 197
5.1.2 Production and consumption perspective ... 197
5.1.3 Regional perspective ... 198
5.2 Methodological and data limitations ... 198
5.3 Conclusions on regional variation, Wallonia’s performance and impact improvement options ... 199
5.3.1 Regional variation ... 199
5.3.2 Priority products and Wallonia’s performance ... 199
5.3.3 Potential improvements ... 199
5.3.4 Further methodological developments ... 200
5.3.5 Use of the developed model in the policy-making process ... 201
Bibliography………..202
