Recommendation Paper

Options for Calculating the

Long-Term Sustainability of Copper Use
The Long-Term Sustainability of Cu Use:

Client: ECI (European Copper Institute)

November 2005

Author:
Dr. C. Herrmann

Hauptstraße 111 – 113

PE Europe GmbH
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E-mail c.herrmann@pe-europe.com
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 List of Contents

List of Contents

List of Contents .................................................................................................................. 3

1 Introduction to Ecodesign ................................................................................ 4
2 Copper and Efficiency of EuP .......................................................................... 4
3 The Calculation of Sustainability Effects of Copper .......................................... 6
4 Recommendation ............................................................................................ 8
5 Literature ......................................................................................................... 9

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1 Introduction to Ecodesign
Ecodesign of energy using products (EuP) gains an increasing level of awareness, not at
least caused from the recently released directive for ecodesign of EuP (ECODESIGN EUP
2005). The core of ecodesign and thus the EuP directive is the quantitative description of
environmental aspects of products throughout the entire life cycle with the aim of continu-
ous improvement, i.e. reduction of environmental impacts.
In other words, the life cycle phases of a product, which are mainly the manufacture, use
and end of life (EoL) –including related transports, maintenance and service aspects etc.-
have to be investigated according to environmental effects. As the quantitative element is
crucial, life cycle assessment (LCA) is one of the dominating methods to provide answers
to the ecodesign requirements.
Although the use phase often dominates the environmental impacts of EuPs, it is obliga-
tory to investigate always all life cycle phases in order to avoid the shift of burdens. Oppo-
sitely, the increase of environmental effects in one life cycle phase or product component
can cause a positive ecodesign effect, if the overall balance of the life cycle is better, i.e.
causes lower impacts to environment in total.

2 Copper and Efficiency of EuP

A very crucial aspect regarding to ecodesign of EuPs is the use phase. Energy is con-
sumed for a specific purpose of the product, but due to the nature of physics, it is coherent
to a specific loss of energy, which is not usable for the intended purpose. Regarding to the
amount of energy and the respective life time of a product the use phase often dominates
the environmental profile of those kinds of products. Consequential the use phase offers
the most efficient option for improvement usually by reducing the related losses of en-
ergy1.
Focusing on electrical power consuming EuPs, the efficiency can be improved by the re-
duction of electrical or mechanical losses. The latter, mechanical losses, mainly exist at
dynamic products, such as motors or pumps, and could be reduced by design and mate-
rial solutions, mostly aiming for reduction of friction.
Electrical losses are at first sight rather a material question than a design issue. One as-
pect in the list of all property aspects of materials is the electric resistivity. The cross sec-
tion and length, the temperature and the resistivity define the resistance, which causes
electric loss, if a material conducts current.
Looking closer to these resistance defining aspects the following options can be listed:
 The selection of a material provides a certain resistivity, better to say a range of re-
sistivity due to the temperature level; Table 2-1 shows some examples of metals.

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Losses are the only variable improvement option as long as the energy demand is seen as necessary or unavoidable to
fulfil the intended application; in this context the system view is out of scope, which might provide significant improvement
potentials as well. Also in this paper it is no question of the necessity of existence and fulfilment of human needs, which
would be rather a basic discussion of sustainability issues of human needs.

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Table 2-1 resistivity of some metals at room temperature (WWW 2005A)

Metal, micro-ohm-centimetre (µΩ*cm)

Silver 1.5

Copper 1.6

Gold 2.0
Aluminium 2.5

Zinc 5.5

Iron 8.7
Lead 19.3

 The temperature influences the resistivity, which is a linear relation in a range upper
or lower of room temperature. Only at very low temperatures close to zero Kelvin,
superconductor effect can appear with zero resistivity, e.g. with lead.
 The increase of cross section or decrease of length, e.g. of a wire or cable, can
lower the resistance.
It can be concluded from these aspects, that not only the selection of a material but also
the design of a cable, e.g. cross section and length, can lower electric losses. The aspect
of temperature is quite complex and will not be discussed further, because usually the
surrounding temperature and rise of temperature due to resistance define the resulting
temperature of the conductor. The effect for example of superconductors is still a matter of
research with unquestionably high potential. But today, still the effort of cooling offers
hardly a positive effect relating to the reduction of losses.
Consequently an EuP with a reduced electrical loss saves energy during use, but also
causes various effects during manufacture. Ecodesign has to take into consideration the
environmental profile of materials, which is symbolised in Table 2-2 on behalf of CO2
emissions per kg produced material2. Certainly the economic values are also a viable as-
pect of consideration.

2
Certainly further treatment of materials such as making wires or sheets must be included in an ecodesign study, which is
not matter of this paper

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Table 2-2 CO2 emission and economic value of some metals (GABI 2005, WWW 2005B)

Metal, kg CO2 emissions per kg pro- ca. value per kg of material

duced material (G ABI 2005) in € (www 2005b)

Silver 365 200

Copper 2.4 4

Gold ca. 30 000 12 500

Aluminium 13 2

Zinc 2.7 1.5

Iron 1.8 – 3.4 (whether mechanical 0.5 up to several € depending

or Si-steel (dynamic or static)) on quality and alloy

Lead 1.7 1

Based on the resistivity values of Table 2-1 and information of Table 2-2, it can be seen
that copper provides the best solution in the trade off between low resistivity material and
its ecological as well as economic value, which is quantified for example from design solu-
tions, such as demand of mass of a material.
Assuming copper has already been selected as conductor material, which often is the
case, there is still an improvement potential in the selection of cross section or length. The
change of those design aspects, e.g. a larger cross section of copper wire, may also
cause changes of residual product parts possibly containing other materials. Thus,
ecodesign must take into regard not only the environmental profiles of the selected mate-
rials, but also consequential changes in the design of the entire product.
The following chapter will provide an overview of alternative calculations how the envi-
ronmental benefit of the use phase can be allocated to the burdens of manufacture due to
additional material demands.

3 The Calculation of Sustainability Effects of Copper

Typical examples, of how to improve the use phase (reduction of losses) of a product by
the use of more material during manufacture, are electric motors and transformers. Those
products mainly consist of three basic materials, which are:
 Copper, which is always used as active material; usually the wires are made of cop-
per
 Aluminium, which is either used as active material alternatively to the copper wires
or is rather a passive3 (supporting) part of the product, e.g. in case of motors as
typically the rotor is made of aluminium
 Steel, which is used for passive parts in the sense of support of active parts, such
as silicon-steel with improved magnetic properties (dynamo or trafo steel), or simply
mechanical steel mainly for constructive and static parts.

3
Active and passive in this context means either the material, which is the conductor material and thus directly causes loss
reduction during use (active), or material, which supports the active parts or is even for static/housing reasons (passive)

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Other materials, which are certainly also applied in those products, such as insulators,
cooling agents etc., usually do not influence the use phase and are of minor significance
in ecological and economic matters. Thus they are not considered here, but principally
should be regarded as additional passive product parts.
Assuming the total number of installed transformers was improved by additional demand
of active material, it would lead to a decrease of environmental effects by their use (use
phase improvement). But more active material leads to higher environmental impacts of
this material plus the additional demand of the passive materials. Generally the following
approaches are possible for an ecodesign consideration:
1) The active material causes the improvements during use and therefore is the only
reason of the improvements; thus the entire benefits are calculated against the im-
pacts only of the active material.
2) The active material causes the improvements but causes also the additional de-
mand of other, passive materials; thus the entire benefits are calculated against the
impacts of the active material, which are increased by the impacts from all other,
passive materials (rucksack principle).
3) All additional materials are equally treated and thus the benefits are allocated with
an allocation factor based on weight (x, y and z are masses of additional demand of
materials, the allocation factor is x/(x+y+z) for the material x, y/(x+y+z) for material y
and z/(x+y+z) for material z).
4) Equally as 3), but the allocation factor does not base on weight but on other criteria
such as economic value, environmental impact or other criteria; thus the x, y, and z
is the weight multiplied with the chosen criteria of each material per kg.
The situation is a typical question of allocation and how to define an allocation factor. In
principle ISO14041 demands to avoid allocation whenever possible. If avoidance is not
possible a physical factor shall be used to quantify the allocation factor. If this is not appli-
cable other factors such as economic values may be taken (ISO 14041).
Many discussions have been taken and still take place on allocation in LCA, e.g. EKVALL
1999 provided a profound base of options. But eventually it must be stated that always the
selection of an allocation is a subjective decision (EKVALL 1999, HERRMANN 2004). The
following considerations have to be taken:
The approaches 1) and 2) avoid allocation and follow an intended principle in LCA, which
is the cause related calculation (EKVALL 1999).
But 1) is not acceptable, as it does not include at all the obviously necessary additional
impacts of the passive materials. It would not be in accordance to the principle of ISO
14041, that “the sum of the allocated inputs and outputs of a unit process shall equal the
unallocated inputs and outputs of the unit process”.
Option 2) is methodologically appropriate, as the active material relates to the benefits
and the consideration of the impacts of the other materials are also covered by the ruck-
sack principle. But from the perspective of the rucksack materials there is no benefit
given, although they are somehow necessary. This option equals an undividable system
view, at which the system is the sum of all additionally applied materials.
The approaches 3) and 4) are typical allocations.

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Option 3) is not cause related as the passive materials, assuming to be considered solely,
would not cause any kind of benefit, but get calculated a partial benefit.
Also option 4) is not cause related as the kind of allocation factor does not provide a better
or more applicable relation between cause and effect as it is usually the matter at alloca-
tions. The effect here is simply the cause for use phase benefit, which is related to active
materials.

4 Recommendation
Based on the described options it seems most appropriate to take option 2), the rucksack
principle, if a clear differentiation of active (cause) and passive (rucksack) material can be
taken. It would follow the ISO principles to avoid allocation and the cause related model-
ling.
If more materials somehow contribute actively to the cause (reduction of use phase loss),
it should be detected how much cause is due to which material. Then the respective bene-
fits can be set in comparison to the individual impacts. If this is not possible due to missing
physical reasons, the benefit should be allocated to the active materials based on option
3). As the physical property „mass‟ is adequate, there is no reason for an alternative allo-
cation base. If in the case of more active materials also passive materials have to be con-
sidered it should be tried to detect, which and how much mass of passive material is pos-
sible to relate to a respective active material, in order to apply the rucksack principle. If
also this is not possible the respective masses of the passive materials should be allo-
cated as rucksack to the active materials on base of allocation by weight of active mate-
rial4.
Finally, if no clear distinction between active and passive material is possible at all, option
3) should be applied to all materials equally. The cause relation is not clear and thus the
principle of cause related modelling is not applicable. Another base than „weight‟ for quan-
tifying the allocation factor would not improve the allocation system at all. Consequently
option 3) is the best trade off for this kind of indefinable situation.
To follow further ISO 14041, which states regarding to the principles of allocation: “when-
ever several alternative allocation procedures seem applicable, a sensitivity analysis shall
be conducted to illustrate the consequences of the departure from the selected ap-
proach.”, it is recommended to conduct studies showing the respective effects of the dif-
ferent approaches, e.g. applied on motors and transformers.
Finally it shall be clearly stated that these recommendations do only apply to the delta of
additional material for a delta of benefit. The cause and effect related aspects of entire
products is not matter of this discussion.

4
The weight of the active materials serve as allocation base also for the passive materials, which after allocation are calcu-
lated as rucksacks.

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5 Literature
ECODESIGN EUP 2005 Directive 2005/32/EC of the European Parliament and of the council
establishing a framework for the setting of ecodesign requirements for
energy-using products and amending Council Directive 92/42/EEC
and Directives 96/57/EC and 2000/55/EC of the European Parliament
and of the Council, Brussels, 6. July 2005

EKVALL 1999 Ekvall T.: System Expansion and Allocation in Life Cycle Assessment,
Dept. of Technical Environmental Planning, Chalmers University of
Technology, Göteborg, Schweden, 1999

GABI 2005 GaBi 4: Software and database for life cycle engineering. IKP,
University of Stuttgart and PE Europe GmbH, Leinfelden-
Echterdingen, 2005

HERRMANN 2004 Herrmann, C.: “Ökologische und ökonomische Bewertung des

Materialrecyclings komplexer Abfallströme am Beispiel von
Elektronikschrott – eine Erweiterung zur Ganzheitlichen Bilanzierung“,
Dissertation, Universität Stuttgart, Institut für Kunststoffprüfung und
Kunststoffkunde, Shaker Verlag, Stuttgart, Januar 2004

ISO 14041 : 1998 ISO 14041 Environmental Management – Life Cycle Assessment –
Goal and Scope Definition and Inventory Analysis

WWW 2005A http://my.execpc.com/~rhoadley/magcondb.htm, last access Nov.

2005

WWW 2005B http://www.lme.co.uk/dataprices_daily_metal.asp, last access Nov.

2005