Ympäristövaikutusluokiksi

Ympäristövaikutusluokiksi, often translated as environmental impact categories or classes, are used to classify and group the potential environmental consequences of a product, service, or activity. These categories help in systematically assessing and communicating the environmental performance of different options. They provide a structured way to analyze and compare impacts across various environmental domains, such as climate change, resource depletion, water pollution, and ecosystem effects.

The purpose of establishing environmental impact categories is to simplify the complex nature of environmental assessment. Instead of reporting on hundreds or thousands of individual environmental parameters, these categories aggregate similar impacts into broader themes. This allows for a more digestible and understandable overview of environmental performance, particularly in life cycle assessments (LCAs). Common impact categories include global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, ozone depletion potential, and photochemical ozone creation potential.

When conducting an environmental assessment, various impact assessment methods are employed to quantify the contribution of a system's elementary flows to these defined impact categories. Each category is typically characterized by a specific characterization factor, which translates a unit of an environmental emission or resource use into a common unit for that category. For instance, CO2 emissions are a primary driver of the global warming potential category, and their contribution is measured in CO2 equivalents. The selection and definition of environmental impact categories can vary depending on the specific assessment methodology or standard being followed.