Norms and methodologies

Environmental claims in the normative framework

The guidelines of Ecosolutions label by TotalEnergies are developed in compliance with the requirements of international standards ISO 14020 and 14021 and falls into the category of self-declared environmental claims. This type of environmental declaration allows companies to highlight their ecological concerns within a normative framework and guarantees their accuracy. Other types of environmental declarations do exists:

Ecosolutions	ISO 14021 standard (self-declared environmental claims): Self-declared claims are issued by the producer or distributor and allow to differentiate of a certain number of products for a given number of criteria without geographical limits. This standard aims above all to ensure the relevance and sincerity of self-declarations. It defines the conditions which are required for a "good" declaration, namely: a real, specific, current, substantial, verifiable improvement, taking into account the life cycle of the product, and a relevant, clear, specific, not exaggerated and not misleading declaration.
	ISO 14024 standard (environmental declarations and ecolabels): Awarded by public or non-profit organizations, these environmental declarations and ecolabels make it possible to identify the most eco-efficient products in a category for a given geographical area and a limited number of criteria. This standard establishes the principles and methods which lead to the development of an ecolabel (type I environmental label), its certification and demonstration of compliance.
	ISO 14025 (Ecoprofiles and environmental labelling): In the context of ecoprofiles and environmental labelling, the producer or distributor displays the state of the environment impact of the product without judging the eco-performance and without geographical limits. This standard provides a framework for Type III environmental declarations, establishing its principles and operating procedures.

Life Cycle Assessment for our calculation performance methodology

The LCA is a standardized methodology that provides a comprehensive, multi-criteria assessment of the environmental impacts of a product or service. It assesses and quantifies the material and energy flows (Inputs like materials, energy, etc. And outputs like emissions, waste, discharges, etc.) related to human activities at every stage of the life cycle:

Extraction of raw materials,
Manufacturing,
Transportation,
Supply,
Use,
Then recovery and reuse, until its final disposal.

The label Ecosolutions by TotalEnergies is based on this Life Cycle Assessment, which compares the awarded product/service/solution to the market benchmark chosen for the same functional unit. It is "the unit of measurement which is used to assess the service provided by the product" ⁽¹⁾. For example, for a hybrid solar power plant that supplies electricity: "produce 1 kWh of electricity per year, which takes into account the 25-year lefispan of the hybrid solar power plant".

This methodology also allows to check if there is any impact transfer. Through each stage of the life cycle, the analysis can show that the product make a lower impact on one criterion than the market reference (greenhouse gas emissions, for example). The multi-criteria vision of the method enables to check the absence of significant impact transfer which is a requirement for an Ecosolutions award by TotalEnergies.

Limits of LCA

The LCA allows to compare two products for the same service in term of environmental impacts. This comparison is derived from an interpretation of results. Therefore, it is important to keep some limits of this analysis in mind:

The overall impact of a product must be considered according to this level of current knowledge.
It is only an assessment of the potential impacts of a product or service or solution.
The results are particularly dependent on the hypotheses chosen at the beginning of the study (scope of the study, functional unit, etc.) but also on the quality of the data (availability, confidentiality, complexity, etc.) and the version of the software, databases and associated impact analysis methods.
For product design, one of the limiting factors is access to the data necessary for the analysis. In this case, generic data from published sources can be considered to favor analyzing all the stages of the value chain.

Despite these limitations, life cycle assessment remains a very complete methodology. The ADEME recommends in its Product Assessment, and makes companies aware of eco-design, through a simplified life cycle analysis approach.

(1) ADEME Definition – « How to make an LCA? »