CEN/TC 411/WG 4 - Sustainability criteria, life cycle analysis and related issues

This document provides examples of business to business (B2B) reporting in accordance with EN 16751 Bio-based products -Sustainability criteria. This Technical Report also offers some additional guidance to the user of EN 16751.

TThis European Standard sets horizontal sustainability criteria applicable to the bio-based part of all bio-based products, excluding food, feed and energy, covering all three pillars of sustainability; environmental, social and economic aspects. If the product is partly bio-based, this European Standard can only be used for the bio-based part since it does not address non-bio-based (fossil, mineral) parts of a product.
This European Standard can be used for two applications; either to provide sustainability information about the biomass production only or to provide sustainability information in the supply chain for the bio-based part of the bio-based product.
This European Standard sets a framework to provide information on management of sustainability aspects.
This European Standard cannot be used to make claims that operations or products are sustainable since it does not establish thresholds or limits.
This European Standard can however be used for business-to-business (B2B) communication or for developing product specific standards and certification schemes.

This Technical Report provides guidance on how to compile an inventory for the end-of-life phase in LCA of bio-based products. All the end-of-life treatments here addressed are shown in Figure 1.
NOTE   The order of the end-of-life options indicated in Figure 1 respect the Directive 2008/98/EC on waste. This list is not exhaustive, but illustrates the content of this Technical Report.

This European Standard provides specific life cycle assessment (LCA) requirements and guidance for bio-based products, excluding food, feed and energy, based on EN ISO 14040 and EN ISO 14044.
This European Standard covers bio-based products, derived wholly or partly from biomass.
This European Standard provides guidance and requirements to assess impact over the life cycle of bio-based products with the focus on how to handle the specificities of the bio-based part of the product.
The applications of LCA as such are outside the scope of this European Standard. Clarifications, considerations, practices, simplifications and options for the different applications, are also beyond the scope of this European Standard. In addition, this European Standard may be applied in studies that do not cover the whole life cycle, with justification e.g. in the case of business-to-business information, such as cradle-to-gate studies, gate-to-gate studies, and specific parts of the life cycle (e.g. waste management, components of a product).

This document provides requirements and guidelines for comparing the life cycles of bio-based products with their fossil-based equivalents.
NOTE   The term “equivalents” generally refers to the “functional equivalence”.
This document builds on existing LCA methodology and provides requirements and guidance on specific topics relevant for making well-balanced comparisons.