Environmental footprint in Swedish industry - increased understanding and implementation

Purpose and goal:

Through stakeholder dialogues, workshops and communication, the project´s aim to raise awareness among companies, authorities and the public sector in Sweden about product-related policy development based on the Environmental Footprint framework at EU level has been achieved. The project´s case studies have contributed to visualizing and clarifying consequences of proposed methodological choices and a greater understanding of the effects an implementation could have on the Swedish industry. An active dialogue with the EU Commission has been maintained during the project.

Expected results and effects:

Sweden´s capacity and readiness to handle future life cycle based requirements and expectations has increased. We see increased collaboration between Swedish actors to exchange knowledge, manage or implement Environmental Footprints. In the long term, these results will in turn lead to strengthened Swedish competitiveness and an improved environment.

Case studies have led to increased knowledge about the consequences and effects of method choices for Swedish Industry. These have been actively communicated to the European Commission to contribute to method development. Approach and implementation:

By bringing together government agencies, industry and academia, and building on existing structures and groups within the Swedish Life Cycle Center, the project was able to quickly get started with relevant case studies and expand the dialogue with and Swedish influence in ongoing policy development within the EU. Extended case study group meetings were fruitful in broadening perspectives, and the same goes for the connection to industry associations.

The open final webinar made it possible for people outside Sweden to get access to results which increased knowledge building.