UBP 2013

UBP 2013, Ecological Scarcity Method

Description

The Ecological Scarcity Method permits impact assessment of life cycle inventories according to the ‘distance to target’ principle.

Eco-factors, expressed as eco-points per unit of pollutant emission or resource extraction, are normalized towards current emissions/levels in Switzerland, and weighted according to Swiss national policy targets or international targets supported by Switzerland. For global warming, the Kyoto protocol governs the reduction target, and the IPCC factors translate into the other greenhouse gases. [UBP 2013]

The eco-factors are implemented in 18 different environmental impacts (e.g. global warming, water pollutants, pesticides into soil, etc.). The 18 sub-values are already translated into the same unit and can be summarized to give a single score result.

There are no normalization and weighting factors available in GaBi for the UBP methodology as normalization and weighting is already carried out in the development of the characterization factors.

Literature

[1]

Frischknecht R., Büssel Knöpfel, S. (2013): Swiss Eco-Factors 2013 according to the Ecological Scarcity Method, Federal Office for the Environment FOEN, öbu - works for sustainability, Bern