The Finnish metals industry and the environment

Abstract

Abstract An extensive R&D project—Life Cycle Assessment as a Tool for the Management of Environmental Issues in the Finnish Metals Industry—was carried out as part of the Finnish Environmental Cluster Research Programme 1998–2000. Life cycle inventory (LCI) data of the main product groups—steel plates and coils, steel bars, steel wires, stainless steel, copper, nickel, zinc and aluminium were produced and company specific environmental impact assessments were made based on these. The LCI data was interpreted by an impact assessment model based on decision analysis and methods used in life cycle impact assessment. The results revealed that the Finnish metals industry is far from homogenous as regards its environmental impacts. The life cycle assessment (LCA) data was also used to identify important areas of environmental protection needed in the industry from the standpoint of eco-efficiency. Notwithstanding the current good level of environmental protection in the Finnish metals industry, reduction of energy use, deposits, sludges, dusts and emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and metals needs to continue. It is possible to upgrade eco-efficiency by producing more metals and by-products from smaller amounts of raw materials and by recovering wastes. Increasing further the reusability and recyclability of metals is also a desirable trend. In the long term, eco-efficiency can best be improved by decreasing the use of metals by developing and better utilising their properties and by increasing the life times of metallic end products. There is also a need for R&D work on land use and landscape issues, as well as the environmental impacts of metals, which cannot currently be properly handled in LCAs.