DIFFERENT APPROACHES FOR CALCULATING IMPACTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE FROM NETWORK COMPONENTS

Increased demand for documentation and communication of environmental performance of electric and electronic products has led to the development of a myriad of life cycle assessment (LCA) based methods. These include Environmental product declaration (EPD), Product environmental footprint (PEF), Product Environmental Profile (PEPecopassport) and carbon footprint (ISO 14067). Product category rules (PCRs) and product specific rules (PSRs) are underlying of the methods, detailing calculation requirements for products or product groups. Ideally, the result for a specific environmental impact of a product should be the same regardless of the methodology used. In this paper, the four above-mentioned methods used to document environmental performance are applied to calculate the impacts on climate change of one network component, namely a gas insulated switchgear produced by ABB. The results from the different methods are compared. Similarities and differences in the underlying calculation rules between the standards are systematically scrutinized, and their consequences on the calculated impacts on climate change are discussed. The total impacts on climate change of one switchgear vary when calculated with different methods, especially for use scenarios, which is defined differently across the PCRs and PSRs, and should be considered during the development of harmonized PCR/PSR/PEFCR's across different methods.