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Designing safe and sustainable products requires a new approach for chemicals
The EU chemicals strategy for sustainability aims to ensure that chemicals are ‘produced and used in a way that maximises their contribution to society … while avoiding harm to the planet and to current and future generations’ (EC, 2020). Building sustainability dimensions into products’ design phase can support the delivery of these objectives. Key features of sustainable products include chemical safety, recyclability and a low environmental impact. This briefing describes approaches that are safe and sustainable by design and identifies enabling conditions, which support their uptake, and the related challenges and opportunities.
EEA Signals 2012 – Building the future we want
Signals 2012 brings together environmental issues such as sustainability, green economy, water, waste, food, governance and knowledge sharing. It is prepared in the context of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development — Rio 2012. This year's Signals will give you a flavour of how consumers, forward-thinking businesses and policymakers can make a difference by combining new technological tools — from satellite observations to online platforms. It will also suggest creative and effective solutions to preserve the environment.
Projected life cycle land use of fossil, nuclear and renewable electricity systems in 2030 (m2/GJel)
The graph illustrates that energy systems differ in the extent and complexity of their impacts by presenting the projected life cycle land use of fossil, nuclear and renewable electricity systems in 2030. To understand the implications of increased bioenergy production, it is important to recognise that the land used for energy cropping is a natural resource, comprising soil, minerals, water and biota. Where bioenergy involves energy cropping it often necessitates changes to land use, with significant implications for related systems as well Other renewable technologies do also use some land and so do fossil and nuclear systems but the area is comparatively small. Nevetheless these technologies have other limitations.
Designing safe and sustainable products requires a new approach for chemicals
The EU chemicals strategy for sustainability aims to ensure that chemicals are ‘produced and used in a way that maximises their contribution to society … while avoiding harm to the planet and to current and future generations’ (EC, 2020). Building sustainability dimensions into products’ design phase can support the delivery of these objectives. Key features of sustainable products include chemical safety, recyclability and a low environmental impact. This briefing describes approaches that are safe and sustainable by design and identifies enabling conditions, which support their uptake, and the related challenges and opportunities.
Environmental impacts
Efficiency range of different biomass-to-energy conversion routes
The figure provides a first overview of the relative efficiency of different types of bioenergy. Data represent net efficiencies taking into account results of life-cycle analysis.
Waste opportunities — Past and future climate benefits from better municipal waste management in Europe
Using a life-cycle perspective, this report analyses the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from municipal solid waste management in the EU, plus Norway and Switzerland. Three scenarios illustrate how waste management and associated GHG emissions might develop until 2020.