Special issue on Priorities for Environmental Product Policy

[Program on Solid Waste Policy <pswp@yale.edu>]

Dear P2 colleagues,

The Journal of Industrial Ecology has recently published a special
issue on Priorities for Environmental Product Policy. The issue
provides rigorous and comprehensive insight into the life-cycle impacts
of consumption -- what we buy and what we use -- on the environment. The
articles identify high-impact product categories at the level of
city (Cardiff), country
(Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark,
Norway and the Netherlands), and continent (the European Union).

A review article from the special issue is available on the web at
<


www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/jiec/10/3
> for free download. The
Journal of Industrial Ecology is a peer-reviewed international
quarterly published by MIT Press, owned by Yale University, and
headquartered at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental
Studies.

Despite the immense differences in approaches, all studies derive the
same major priorities. The
following activities and product groups cause 70 to 80% of the total
environmental impacts in society:

• Mobility: automobile and air transport;
• Food: meat and dairy, followed by other types of food; and
• The home, and related energy use: buildings, and heating-, cooling-, and other energy using appliances.

Important reductions in environmental impacts thus can be reached by
policies that target this limited group of product
categories.

The special issue is based on
research prepared for the EU-funded project
Environmental Impacts
of Products. The project was led
by Dutch research organizations TNO
and CML and provides an important basis for the EU?s Integrated Product
Policy.

For more information about this special issue, see <

http://tinyurl.com/y4c8pe>

Sincerely,
Reid Lifset
Editor-in-chief,
Journal of Industrial Ecology

Reid Lifset
Editor, Journal of Industrial Ecology
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Yale University
205 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT  06511-2189  USA
203-432-6949 (tel)
203-432-5912 (Fax)
reid.lifset@yale.edu (personal)
indecol@yale.edu (journal)
http://mitpress.mit.edu/JIE