What are your thoughts on a Sustainabilty Rating System? | Use Celsias.co.nz - New Zealand's guide to sustainable business

I worry with the myriad factors in which our daily living habits impact the environment, can we really tell if our small changes for the environment make a difference or make things worse!

Does buying an energy efficient light bulb help the planet? Or do the materials, production methods and end of life wastage add up to a greater harm?

What if products and services came with a score that could indicate their impact simply for consumers? What are the ppotential problems with this?

In September 2010 in Energy Saving, Sustainability

4 replies

icp 12°

Unfortunately, indicating an impact "simply" is the hard part. As you may have seen in these pages there is already much confusion and exageration over "eco-labelling" (http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/Page____42096....). Any evaluation requires commensurable life cycle assessment... for instance: 2 brands of CFL bulbs made in NZ have no mercury added (as well as achieving good power factors - beneficial for the grid), most of the cheaper imported bulbs have mercury in them. "Our" CFLs are produced by electricity that was 70% renewable, bulbs from most other parts of the world utilised coal fired electricity. "Ours" cost more.
If one is really serious about these details you need to do your own research - no government can keep track of - or mandate - LCA considerations. Governments have enough trouble with basic safety issues and not hindering trade flows in a global market that is inundated with novel products.
Some good sites for starting with LCA: http://www.bath.ac.uk/mech-eng/sert/embodied/ , http://scp.eionet.europa.eu/themes/lca.
Of couse to do LCA thoroughly you need access to the potentially commercially-sensitive aspects of a product.
For myself I use a fuzzy logic concept of approximate evaluation, concentrating on the larger impacts and always contained by the reality of comparative cost .

Written in September 2010

G 10°

Piero, your comments are completely valid. This issue is about 'getting real' with the desire to be sustainable. Can you imagine using the analysis resources used for the economy, but on sustainability instead? It would be a mammoth task to set up but once in, the systems would largely look after themselves and we would get high quality information pretty much instantly... PROVIDED the true value of this knowledge was understood. We aren't there by a long shot but if the doom and gloom predictions start to bare fruit, the resources will 'flood' into this area.

Written in September 2010

earthscape 10°

The number of groups rushing to head up sustainability is interesting. Ultimately we do need to think big in terms of the planet, but think small in terms of our impact. For starters, our economy is geared for producing and purchasing poor quality items that don't last wind up as landfill. What if we created and purchased only things that would last? The cool thing is YOU CAN DO THIS... I do and I really love my work now.

Written in September 2012

Rory C. 15°

If we could carry out a life cycle assessment of every product we purchased we would be able to make better sustainable decisions.

But who goes to the trouble of researching the total coat of ownership of a pair of shoes?

The argument against cheap imports is that their initial cost is outweighed by the premature disposal costs and potential harm cheaper materials do to the environment.

Maybe NZ has a niche manufacturing market available through sustainable products that are built to last and have a verifiable total cost of ownership that is lower than the imports?

Written in September 2012

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