Eco-efficiency
The ratio between the value a product or system delivers and the environmental impact it causes -- more value per unit of impact, or less impact per unit of value.…
Glossary Terms
Working definitions for the terms that recur across this project: the circular economy, water resource recovery and reuse, and the life cycle methods -- LCA, LCC and S-LCA -- that AWARE combines into one sustainability assessment. They are written for a general reader rather than for specialists.
Showing entries beginning with E.
E
Elementary Flow
A material or energy flow that crosses the boundary between the technical system and the environment without further human transformation: water abstracted from a river, carbon dioxide released to air,…
End of Life
The final stage of a life cycle, describing what happens to a product or its parts once it is no longer used: reuse, recycling, recovery of energy or materials, incineration…
Environmental Footprint (PEF / OEF)
The European Commission's harmonised LCA methods for products (Product Environmental Footprint) and organisations (Organisation Environmental Footprint), set out in Commission Recommendation (EU) 2021/2279. They fix many choices ISO leaves open…
Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)
A standardised, independently verified document reporting the life cycle environmental performance of a product, following ISO 14025. EPDs are built on Product Category Rules (PCRs), which fix how products in…
Eutrophication
Over-enrichment of water bodies with nutrients -- mainly nitrogen and phosphorus -- leading to algal blooms, oxygen depletion and loss of aquatic life. It is one of the impact categories…
Externalities
Costs or benefits that fall on third parties or the environment and are not reflected in market prices -- pollution damage, or the value of freshwater left in a river.…
Definitions are written for this site in plain language. The selection of terms was checked against the Life Cycle Initiative terminology (UNEP), the ILCA Common Glossary and the SimaPro LCA glossary, and against ISO 14040/14044, ISO 14046, ISO 14075 and the UNEP Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment (2020).
