Contents
- LC Net Focus
- Announcements
- Activity Updates
- Life Cycle Calendar
- Job Announcements
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E-Learning Life Cycle Thinking at the University of Balamand (Lebanon): A conversation with Rima Manneh
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 As many of our readers know, the Life Cycle Initiative has an online course on Introduction to Life Cycle Thinking. This course is for anyone who wants to learn more about life cycle thinking and how it can inform sound decision-making. We interviewed Rima Manneh, Associate Professor and chairperson of the chemical engineering department at the University of Balamand, Lebanon, to learn more about her experience using the e-learning course as part of her teaching.
Rima explained that her course “Environmental Design and Life Cycle Assessment” introduces students to the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology and teaches them how to determine the environmental impacts of products. These students are pursuing a graduate degree in chemical engineering; most are not familiar with life cycle thinking or environmental footprint assessment. The University of Balamand was a pioneer in introducing such a course for the Lebanese context.
“My students really enjoyed it! And the motivation of getting a certificate at the end was an additional bonus”, Rima said. “Not only did the certificate demonstrate that the students had successfully completed the life cycle online course, but it also allows them to put it in their CV.”
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Call for Proposals, Literature and Reviewers for New Meta Study
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UNEP is looking for a technical not-for profit partner to conduct a meta-analysis of LCA studies to assess the environmental impacts of single-use plastic food packaging and its alternatives (including reusable options where relevant) and make recommendations. The meta-analysis will focus on three food product archetypes, such as dry produce such as cereals, pulses, or rice; quickly perishable fruit / vegetables; snacks such as chips and candy with single-use packaging, etc. Are you interested in submitting a proposal to be this partner? Find all the relevant info in the detailed call for proposals. Proposals are to be submitted before 31 May 2021.
 Any LCA expert can share relevant literature on this topic and to become a reviewer for this publication. We are particularly keen to have a diverse stakeholder representation, including governments setting policies on single-use plastic products, industry (producers of plastic products and their alternatives), NGOs, etc. Please reach out to Angelique Vermeer.
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A Green Deal for Sustainable Resources
Call for abstracts is now open!
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 The World Resources Forum (WRF) recently announced its 2021 conference, 12-14 October in (Ghana – Switzerland – Online). ‘A Green Deal for Sustainable Resources’ will be a hybrid conference format. There is a call for abstracts to present new and innovative perspectives within topic streams of primary resources, secondary resources, and circular economy. The WRF Scientific Committee is looking forward to including theoretical and empirical contributions that highlight the role of life-cycle approaches across a variety of sectors, products, business models and geographical contexts.
Get more info on the call for abstracts and submissions.
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Welcomes and Good-Byes
This month we have a lot of welcomes and good-byes in the team
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Sadly, our interns for the past six months, Naomi and Kaushik, end their internship after having passed the baton to Rowena and Angelique, who joined the Secretariat in early April bringing fresh blood and energy:
Rowena Waldron is a recent graduate of MSc Environmental Policy & Sociology from the beautiful city of Edinburgh, Scotland, her native town. Angelique Vermeer is from the Netherlands where she just finished a MSc in Climate Studies and a MSc in Sustainable Development, where she worked on a Life Cycle Assessment of plastic-based fuel.
Goodbye to Laura, Naomi and Kaushik
And as new colleagues arrive, it is also time to say “à bientôt!” to Naomi Odigbo and Kaushik Andakudi Kesavan, who devoted their internship time to supporting the Initiative in the last six months with great enthusiasm. Naomi and Kaushik, all the best and keep in touch!
It is also time for our esteemed colleague Laura Williamson to leave UNEP; Laura stepped in to cover for Feng Wang’s temporary assignment since September 2020, and in this time has provided fantastic support to the Initiative Secretariat and, among others, to the roll-out of SCP-HAT regional trainings. Laura’s energy, wit, sense of humour and coordination capacity will be missed in the Initiative but will strengthen our friends at Ren21 from this week: Bon courage in your new endeavours Laura!
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SCP-HAT: Informing Country Development plans and supporting GO4SDGs
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The uptake of the Sustainable Consumption and Production Hotspots Analysis Tool (SCP-HAT) is picking up momentum in supporting the design of national development plans of different sorts. The tool is particularly appreciated given its intuitive use, user-friendly interface, and the speed at which it can help identify key hotspots of unsustainable consumption and production. The UNDP (UN Development Programme) is applying SCP-HAT in several countries to guide identification of SCP and Circular Economy options to enhance Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Country reports are already available for Vanuatu and The Gambia, and there are ongoing applications in Lao PDR, South Sudan, Uganda and Kenya.
 UNEP is also collaborating with the Partnership for Action on Green Economy to support green recovery strategies in Kazakhstan, India, and Thailand via the application of SCP-HAT in collaboration with the UN Country Teams in these countries. In addition, capacity to apply the SCP-HAT is being built through the GO4SDGs project, which is aimed at accelerating action towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. In this sense, regional training workshops on SCP-HAT are being offered to help enhance national plans with the environmental intelligence provided by this tool.
The first SCP-HAT workshop was held at the beginning of March for the Latin America and Caribbean region in Spanish, with live English translations. The recording is available on the Initiative’s YouTube channel.
The workshop for the Asia-Pacific region was held at the end of April and provided a focus on its application to enhancing the Nationally Determined Contributions to greenhouse gas emissions reductions. A workshop for Africa will be held mid-May. |
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Join the Launch: UNEP’s new textile project
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UNEP is supporting Sustainable Consumption and Production systems in the textiles sector by providing access to expertise and data on life cycle thinking, resource efficiency and circularity. The InTex project will officially be launched 15 June 2021 11:00-12:00 CEST.
 The project supports the uptake of eco-innovation and use of Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) within textile SMEs in Kenya, South Africa, and Tunisia. At the same time, it will catalyse global efforts to increase LCA data accessibility through GLAD; and will also provide evidence on the potential environmental and socio-economic impacts of adopting innovative circular policies and practices in the textile value chain.
The launch will feature insights on the role of circularity and the textile value chain in Africa from UNEP, the EU, and InTex partners. Interested in joining the virtual launch? Register here.
InTex is a three-year project led by UNEP and funded by the European Union (EU) to promote sustainable business practices and economic models in the textile value chain. Several partner organisations are involved, including the International Centre for Environmental Technologies of Tunis (CITET) in Tunisia, Moi University in Kenya and the Centre for African Resource Efficiency and Sustainability (CARES) and the National Cleaner Production Centre of South Africa (NCPC-SA) in South Africa
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New meta-study on Nappies is released
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 We are pleased to announce the release of a LCA meta-study on single-use nappies and their alternatives. The meta-study on nappies shows that the contribution of single-use nappies to plastic waste is substantial. Reusable cloth nappies have lower environmental impact when washed in an energy efficient manner that also minimizes water use.
The results are part of a series of meta-studies, each covering single-use plastic products and their alternatives, including shopping bags, bottles, take-away food packaging, beverage cups, tableware, menstrual products and face masks – with these last two to be published by June 2021. The studies are in response to the 2019 UN Environmental Assembly Resolution 9 on addressing single-use plastic products pollution.
In June, the findings of the Nappy report will be further discussed in a public and interactive online event, organized in collaboration with the UK Nappy Alliance.
Interested in joining us? Follow our Twitter, LinkedIn and website for announcements.
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“FlipFlopi”: Preventing Plastics Pollution with a Circular Economy approach
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The Life Cycle Initiative’s Llorenç Milà i Canals contributed to a lively event co-hosted by UNEP, the British High Commission in Dar es Salaam and the FlipFlopi project, on Preventing Plastic Pollution. The role of LCA in informing policies to prevent plastic pollution was the key topic of the Initiative’s presentation, based on the latest reports published in our website. In the event, ongoing and forthcoming actions by the Government of Tanzania were also shared, as well as the approach and support from the European Union in this domain towards a circular economy. IUCN’s Peter Manyara also shared the latest country report of the National Guidance for Plastics Pollution Hotspotting applied to Tanzania, which will be soon uploaded in our website. The government highlighted the need to work strongly on education and behaviour change, as well as on enforcing the legislation to extend producers’ responsibility.
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One of the pillars of the Life Cycle Initiative is to foster global consensus and knowledge on life cycle assessments. Creating a Global Life Cycle Assessment Method is fundamental to this. The Initiative is pleased to share that, along with the Life Cycle community, it is well on its path to achieving this!
The GLAM (Global Life Cycle Impact Assessment Method) project is currently focusing on establishing a comprehensive, consistent and global Environmental Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) method. There is a lot of interest in this work, which is structured around specific task forces for charactering impacts on human health, on ecosystem quality, on ecosystem services and natural resources, as well as cross-cutting issues including normalization and weighting. Below is summary of what is happening in the human health task force:
The focus in this task force is on the introduction of new and refinement of existing impact categories that relate to human health damages, on human health damage modelling, and on addressing possible overlaps across impact categories.
Impacts on human health that are currently being advanced for consistent inclusion in the final GLAM method are those associated with climate change, fine particulate matter formation indoors and outdoors, human near-field/far-field exposure and toxicity including worker impacts, nutritional impacts, water use and deprivation impacts, and ionizing radiation including impacts from radon.
First updates on the methodology have been published already for human near-field/far-field exposure and toxicity (Int. Journal of LCA) and for nutritional impacts (Nature Food, in press). All new and re-visited impact categories will provide characterization factors for human health at population level.
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We are GLAD to Hear from You
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 Since the launch of the Global LCA Data Access Network (GLAD) last year, the GLAD team is working hard to boost all its functionalities. But we cannot do it alone! If you are an LCA practitioner and want to share your experience using GLAD, please fill in the registration form to participate in our Focus Group specially designed for end users. We will get in touch to set up the date and provide more info!
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Life Cycle Community Calendar
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The Life Cycle Initiative will be present in the EU Green Week 2021
UNEP will be providing perspectives on the use of life cycle information to support consumer choices and lifestyles next to our colleagues in the Joint Research Centre, who will be launching the Consumer Footprint Calculator
Session title: 8.2 Walking tall and treading light – creating sustainable lifestyles with the environmental footprint tool
Date:Thursday 3rd June 11.15-12.15h.
Link: https://www.eugreenweek.eu/
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USEtox Summer School
7-11 June 2021
Course description
The USEtox summer school feeds into Europe’s Zero Pollution ambition as part of the European Green Deal as well as into various United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to minimising human and environmental health impacts from hazardous chemicals. USEtox results are applied in various science and policy areas, including life cycle assessment (LCA), chemical substitution and alternatives assessment (CAA), risk assessment (RA), and high-throughput risk screening (HTS).
The USEtox summer school is suitable for PhD students, researchers, practitioners and professionals in companies and organizations working with toxicity characterization, chemicals management and environmental assessment. The summer school will focus on providing a practical overview of multimedia chemical fate modelling, near-field and far-field consumer and population exposure modelling, ecosystem and human health effects modelling, and comparative indicators for human-toxicological and ecotoxicological impact assessment, using the newest USEtox scientific consensus model.
Main course objective: learn how USEtox can be used in various applications, building on the latest scientific consensus recommendations under UNEP’s Global Life Cycle Assessment Method. Participants will have hands-on access to all course model files, data, documentation and reading materials.
Case work: participants will work on their own case study from any relevant application field, using/implementing their specific substances and model adaptations of interest.
More information.
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LCM 2021. Building a Sustainable Future Based on Innovation and Digitalization
5-8 September 2021
 The LCM (Life Cycle Management) conference series is one of the world’s leading forums for environmental, economic and social sustainability. The 10th International Conference on Life Cycle Management will take place from 5th-8th September 2021 in Stuttgart, Germany. The conference will be organized under the following theme: Building a Sustainable Future Based on Innovation and Digitalization.
We invite all those of you who are interested in extending their knowledge and practice of Life Cycle Management – whether from science, industry, public bodies or NGOs – to participate in LCM 2021.
More information.
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SETAC 8th World Congress
4-8 September 2022
The SETAC 8th World Congress will now be held from 4-8 September 2022 in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands. Please save the date, and stay tuned for updates as we get closer to the meeting.
More information.
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Life Cycle Job Announcements
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Consultant for Life Cycle Initiative
The Life Cycle Initiative is looking for a consultant to lead the five-year strategy development of the Secretariat. The consultant will work closely with the Secretariat and its Steering Committee Members and Funders to analyse the current functioning of the Initiative, identify strategic activity areas; develop a strategic and fundraising plan. We will post an announcement on our LinkedIn and Twitter accounts when the posting is available. So, keep your eyes peeled!
Five Post-Doctorate Research Positions Available
The Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) is seeking five postdoctoral fellows to work on research topics related to oceanic and land-use systems, cities, production and consumption patterns, and transformative policies. One postdoctoral fellow will work on CONSUMPTION, with a strong life cycle angle, examining how the processes of production and consumption of goods and services relate to the resource use and the resulting environmental impacts during their lifespan and how they affect technological transitions and human well-being.
The application deadline is 15 May 2021. More information.
Come and Intern with Us!
The Life Cycle Initiative is now accepting applications for two, 6-month internship posts in our UNEP Paris office; two posts for September 2021 – March 2022, and another two posts for March – September 2022. The interns will work under the direct supervision of the Head of the Life Cycle Initiative, in coordination with Programme Officers of the Life Cycle Unit in UNEP.
Please note, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the September 2021 -March 2022 internship can be conducted remotely. The option to work remotely during the March-September 2022 internship is also a possibility and the situation will be monitored. The deadline for applications is the 10th of May. We look forward to welcoming you to the team!
More information on the Job Opening and details on how to apply.
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Join us as a Funding Partner
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The work of the Life Cycle Initiative would not be possible without the support of its sponsors. By contributing to the Initiative, businesses and governments not only gain access to unparalleled expertise in how to align their activities with their United Nations Environmental and Social Development commitments, but they also play a role in transforming their activities, as models of Life Cycle Thinking. If you are interested in becoming a funding partner, please contact the Initiative.
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Ongoing call for LC Net contributions
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Members of the Life Cycle Initiative, please feel free to submit your event, job vacancy, news, capacity development opportunities, topics and stories related to life cycle thinking and LCA, to be shared with the global life cycle community. We are always looking for featured coverage on the experience how life cycle thinking contributes to different policy agendas, sustainable business and decision making, in various countries and regions.
Note that we cannot accept contributions of a commercial nature. LCNet is released bimonthly in the beginning of January, March, May, July, September and November; please send us your piece approximately two weeks before the release date. We look forward to your contributions in disseminating life cycle knowledge from global policy and business agendas!
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THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDING PARTNERS!
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