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Which Types of Products are the Worst for the Environment?

  • 1.  Which Types of Products are the Worst for the Environment?

    Posted 10-20-2006 13:59
    Dear ONE-L colleagues,

    The Journal of Industrial Ecology has recently published a special issue on Priorities for Environmental Product Policy. The issue provides rigorous and comprehensive insight into the life-cycle impacts of consumption -- what we buy and what we use -- on the environment. The articles identify high-impact product categories at the level of city (Cardiff), country (Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands), and continent (the European Union).

    A review article from the special issue is available on the web at < www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/jiec/10/3 > for free download. The Journal of Industrial Ecology is a peer-reviewed international quarterly published by MIT Press, owned by Yale University, and headquartered at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

    Despite the immense differences in approaches, all studies derive the same major priorities. The following activities and product groups cause 70 to 80% of the total environmental impacts in society:
    • Mobility: automobile and air transport;
    • Food: meat and dairy, followed by other types of food; and
    • The home, and related energy use: buildings, and heating-, cooling-, and other energy using appliances.
    Important reductions in environmental impacts thus can be reached by policies that target this limited group of product categories.

    The special issue is based on research prepared for the EU-funded project Environmental Impacts of Products. The project was led by Dutch research organizations TNO and CML and provides an important basis for the EU?s Integrated Product Policy.

    For more information about this special issue, see < http://tinyurl.com/y4c8pe>

    Sincerely,
    Reid Lifset
    Editor-in-chief,
    Journal of Industrial Ecology

    [please excuse any cross-postings, but do forward this announcement to others that might be interested]
    <x-sigsep>

    ============================================================
    Reid J. Lifset, Assoc. Dir.                                 School of Forestry & Env. Studies
    Industrial Environmental Mgmt. Program            Yale University
    Editor, Journal of Industrial Ecology                    205 Prospect Street
    203-432-6949 (tel)  -5912 (fax)                           New Haven, CT   06511-2189  USA
    reid.lifset@yale.edu
    http://mitpress.mit.edu/JIE

    ============================================================
    Reid J. Lifset, Assoc. Dir.                                 School of Forestry & Env. Studies
    Industrial Environmental Mgmt. Program            Yale University
    Editor, Journal of Industrial Ecology                    205 Prospect Street
    203-432-6949 (tel)  -5912 (fax)                           New Haven, CT   06511-2189  USA
    reid.lifset@yale.edu
    http://mitpress.mit.edu/JIE

    </x-sigsep>