Indicators for eco-efficiency in recycling systems

Abstract

The concept of eco-efficiency was introduced by the World Business Councils on Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in 1992. Since then it has been widely adopted among companies to measure and improve the value added while progressively reducing the environmental influence per product or service to the market. However, emphasise has until now mainly been put on the creation stage and to some extent the user stage of products or services, not on the end-of-life stage. In this paper, which is one part of the research project “Eco-efficiency in recycling systems” within the Norwegian research program Productivity 2005-Industrial ecology, we have, by using WBCSDs eco-efficiency as a starting point, developed three categories of indicators that should be used to evaluate and improve the eco-efficiency of recycling systems. The general applicable indicators should be used to measure the eco-efficiency of all kinds of recycling systems. Additionally, If needed, the system specific indicators should be developed for the particularly recycling system analysed. These indicators are the eco-efficiency indicators to be used to evaluate the performance of the whole recycling system. However, in order to change/improve the eco-efficiency an existing recycling system, the company specific indicators should be developed for each of the most contributing company/activity/actor/stage of the life cycle chain for the analysed material or product