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Eco-costs are a measure to express the amount of environmental burden of a product on the basis of prevention of that burden. They are the costs which should be made to reduce the environmental pollution and materials depletion in our world to a level which is in line with the carrying capacity of our earth. For example: for each 1000 kg CO2 emission, one should invest €135,- in offshore windmill parks (and the other CO2 reduction systems at that price or less). When this is done consequently, the total CO2 emissions in the world will be reduced by 65% compared to the emissions in 2008. As a result, global warming will stabilise. In short: "the eco-costs of 1000kg CO2 are € 135,-". Similar calculations can be made on the environmental burden of acidification, eutrification, summer smog, fine dust, eco-toxicity, and the use of metals, rare earth, fossil fuels, water and land (nature). As such, the eco-costs are virtual costs, since they are not yet integrated in the real life costs of current production chains (Life Cycle Costs). The eco-costs should be regarded as hidden obligations. The eco-costs of a product are the sum of all eco-costs of emissions and use of resources during the life cycle "from cradle to cradle". The widely accepted method to make such a calculation is called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which is basically a mass and energy balance, defined in the 14040 and ISO 14044. The practical use of eco-costs is to compare the sustainability of several product types with the same functionality. The advantage of eco-costs is that they are expressed in a standardized monetary value (€) which appears to be easily understood ‘by instinct’. Also the calculation is transparent and relatively easy, compared to damage based models which have the disadvantage of extremely complex calculations with subjective weighting of the various aspects contributing to the overall environmental burden.〔M. Bengtsson, B. Steen.: (''Weighting in LCA, approaches and applications'' ). Environmental Progress 2000; 19(2): 101-109〕〔G. Finnveden; (''On the Limitations of Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Systems Analysis Tools in General'' ). Int. J. LCA 5, pp 229-238, 2000〕 The system of eco-costs is part of the bigger model of the Ecocosts/Value Ratio, EVR〔J.G. Vogtländer;(''EVR, LCA-based assessment of sustainability'' ) , VSSD, 2010〕 ==Background information== The eco-costs system has been introduced in 1999 on conferences, and published in 2000-2004 in the International Journal of LCA,〔J.G. Vogtländer, A. Bijma;(''The 'virtual pollution costs ‘99', a single LCA-based indicator for emissions'' ) , Int. J. LCA, 5 (2), pp.113 –124, 2000〕〔J.G. Vogtländer, H.C. Brezet, Ch.F. Hendriks; (''The Virtual Eco-costs ‘99, a single LCA-based indicator for sustainability and the Eco-costs / Value Ratio (EVR)model for economic allocation'' ), Int. J. LCA, 6 (3) pp 157-166, 2001〕 and in the Journal of Cleaner Production.〔J.G. Vogtländer, A. Bijma, H. Brezet; (''Communicating the eco-efficiency of products and services by means of the Eco-costs / Value Model'' ), J. of Cleaner Production Volume 10, 2002, pp. 57-67〕〔J.G. Vogtländer, E. Lindeijer, J.-P. M. Witte, Ch. Hendriks; (''Characterizing the change of land-use based on flora: application for EIA and LCA'' ), J. of Cleaner Production, accepted 2002, Volume 12, Issue 1, February 2004, Pages 47-57〕 In 2007 the system has been updated, and published in 2010.〔J.G. Vogtländer; (''EVR, LCA-based assessment of sustainability'' ) , VSSD, 2010〕 It is planned to update the system every 5 years to incorporate the latest developments in science. In the summer of 2012 a new update has been released. The concept of eco-costs has been made operational with general databases, and is described at (www.ecocostsvalue.com ) of the Delft University of Technology. The method of the eco-costs is based on the sum of the marginal prevention costs (end of pipe as well as system integrated) for toxic emissions related to human health as well as ecosystems, emissions that cause global warming, and resource depletion (metals, rare earth, fossil fuels, water, and land-use). For a visual display of the system see Figure 1. Marginal prevention costs of toxic emissions are derived from the so-called prevention curve as depicted in Figure 2. The basic idea behind such a curve is that a country (or a group of countries, such as the European Union), must take prevention measures to reduce toxic emissions (more than one measure is required to reach the target). From the point of view of the economy, the cheapest measures (in terms of euro/kg) are taken first. At a certain point at the curve, the reduction of the emissions is sufficient to bring the concentration of the pollution below the so-called no-effect-level. The no-effect-level of emissions is the level that the emissions and the natural absorption of the earth are in equilibrium again at a maximum temperature rise of 2 degrees C. The no-effect-level of a toxic emission is the level where the concentration in nature is well below the toxicity threshold (most natural toxic substances have a toxicity threshold, below which they might even have a beneficial effect), or below the background level. For human toxicity the 'no-observed-adverse-effect level' is used. The eco-costs are the marginal prevention costs of the last measure of the prevention curve to reach the no-effect-level. See the abovementioned references 4 and 8 for a full description of the calculation method (note that in the calculation 'classes' of emissions with the same ‘midpoint’ are combined, as explained below). The classical way to calculate a 'single indicator' in LCA is based on the damage of the emissions. Pollutants are grouped in 'classes', multiplied by a 'characterisation' factor to account for their relative importance within a class, and totalised to the level of their 'midpoint' effect (global warming, acidification, nutrification, etc.). The classical problem is then to determine the relative importance of each midpoint effect. This is done by 'normalisation' (= comparison with the pollution in a country or a region) and 'weighting' (= giving each midpoint a weight, to take the relative importance into account) by an expert panel. The calculation of the eco-costs is based on classification and characterisation tables as well (combining tables from IPCC (()), the USEtox model ((usetox.org )), tables of ReCiPe (()), the ILCD (()), and RiskPoll (())), however has a different approach to the normalisation and weighting steps. Normalisation is done by calculating the marginal prevention costs for a region (i.e. the European Union), as described above. The weighting step is not required in the eco-costs system, since the total result is the sum of the eco-costs of all midpoints. The advantage of such a calculation is that the marginal prevention costs are related to the cost of the most expensive Best Available Technology which is needed to meet the target, and the corresponding level of Tradable Emission Rights which is required in future. Example: For reduction of CO2 emissions to a sustainable level, the marginal prevention costs are the costs of replacement of coal-fired power plants by windmill parks at the sea. The eco-costs have been calculated for the situation in the European Union. It might be argued that the eco-costs are also an indication of the marginal prevention costs for other parts of the globe, under the condition of a level playing field for production companies. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Eco-costs」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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