Concept

From experience in developing and testing pollution prevention tools ranging from the opportunity assessment methodology to life cycle assessment and impact assessment, the Systems Analysis Branch (SAB) of the EPA's National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL)has acquired a long record of lessons learned in applying these approaches to real world applications.Many of these lessons illustrate several limitations exhibited by each of these P2 approaches.For example, the pollution prevention opportunity assessment (PPOA), perhaps the most intuitive and simplest P2 tool available, is very good at identifying ways to improve operating practices, but the SAB has found several deficiencies in the PPOA=s ability to support the procurement of new equipment, products and substitute materials.Life cycle assessment, by contrast, attempts to resolve those deficiencies by providing a far more comprehensive picture than PPOA, but it is very complex and more expensive by at least an order of magnitude than the PPOA. Further, while each methodological approach provides information on environmental burdens, neither provides any insights on the inevitable trade-offs that occur in performance and cost resulting from a decision.The failure to account for these trade-offs early in the assessment may result in a decision that inadvertently creates negative impacts in performance, cost and environment. In 2000, the SAB has formed the Engineering Trade-Offs (ETO) to develop a methodology to address these deficiencies and advance informed decision-making.

Everyday we weigh trade-offs for individual and corporate decisions.Even complex trade-off decisions are made routinely.For example, to a home buyer, the purchase of a house involves consideration of a host of trade-offs that cannot be measured in just one metric, such as dollars. A house in a good school district may mean a longer commute to work. One located close to work may be in an expensive neighborhood, or close to the noise of a busy road. A young family may desire a two-story house, while an older couple may require a one-floor plan. here are pragmatic considerations of location, neighborhood, access to amenities, civic infrastructure, home design, cost, and more. There are social or cultural considerations based on personal perceptions of status and ethnicity.

If the identification and quantification of these considerations can be likened to a life cycle inventory (e.g., reviewing published average SAT scores for use as a measure of school quality), then the weighing of these considerations may be likened to a life cycle impact assessment (e.g., attendance at the top-scoring school by the child means a 30-minute work commute by a parent). Therefore, these considerations can be represented as impact categories. Inevitably, the desire for specific accommodations will result in having to accept other trade-offs. Interestingly, these impacts are routinely assessed, valued, weighed and a decision reached without the benefit of algorithms or complex analytical tools.Most represent apples-to-oranges comparisons and include life cycle scale considerations, yet even inexperienced decision-makers are routinely able to make an ultimately satisfying decision.

NRMRLs Engineering Trade-Offs (ETO) program is developing a methodological approach to account for the wide variety of trade-offs that occur whenever a decision is made, from the very intimate level of personal preference to the wider ranging level of institutional policy.This approach involves integrating economic impacts (cost and performance) with environmental impacts of a decision, including an assessment of the impacts of actually implementing the decision and the social reaction as a result of the decision.It is being designed for decision-makers, rather than analysts.

Conceptual Basis for ETO

ETO focuses on the four areas considered to be critical in making a fully informed decision: performance, environment, economics and acceptance. In considering a change, the decision-maker has to know:

Will it work better than what is currently being used?
Will the environmental effects be less?
Will it cost less, or provide a better return?
Will our people accept it and use it correctly?

These areas are considered critical because a failure in any one area ultimately defeats the goal of the change. For example, if a change of technology is implemented that has demonstrated lower costs, better performance and lower environmental effect, all those benefits can yet be negated in practice if those responsible for implementation do not understand it or resist using it. Therefore, ETO seeks to develop a methodological approach to capture the potential for success and the risk of failure in each of these areas to fully inform the decision-maker and guide the successful implementation of source reduction activities and technologies.

Economic and Environmental Trade-offs

For the conceptual basis of examining the economic and environmental trade-offs of a decision, ETO borrows from the LCED program the principle of integrating performance, cost and environment. These are the fundamental factors that a decision-maker would consider during a choice between alternatives. At the minimum, each alternative has to fulfill the necessary economic function, be affordable to acquire, use and maintain, and be compliant with existing regulations.

Environment is related to economics with a social understanding to ensure that the decision-maker will also have knowledge of the trade-offs between the critical values that occur as the result of making a decision. This perspective is necessary in order to ensure that the decision to be made will be sustainable.

Implementation

When a decision maker chooses to select one system over another, it is important to account for the impacts of the implementation itself, particularly if one system is in place and has to be retired.For example, a hospital may choose to replace medical equipment containing mercury with mercury-free electronic components and devices.What does it then do with the equipment being retired?What impacts flow from the way it is retired - retrofit, disposal, sell-off to other users, etc.?In some instances, these decisions can lead to significant environmental risk.

Acceptance

It is important to consider the potential impact of a decision in terms of its acceptance, or its rejection via human error and will. A technically correct P2 decision can be quickly defeated by these two factors.ETO recognizes that P2 decisions have to be carried out by human beings. While human beings sometimes make mistakes, it is also true that some situations are prone to promoting mistakes.Such situations can easily defeat a P2 decision.It is also true that human beings have individual will, and if the persons responsible with implementing a decision do not fully accept, there are a number of ways they can defeat it.

While it is impossible to anticipate all the potential effects of human error and will in the implementation of a P2 decision, ETO will investigate methods to examine the potential acceptance risk in order to guide the decision-maker in developing strategies to reduce the risk. There is already a large body of work on organizational behavior and managing change in the workplace, from which a method for integrating these tools within ETO may be developed.

Conclusion

While ETO is not proposed as a replacement for life cycle tools and methodologies, it is being developed as a useful methodology for capturing trade-offs in decision-making with the intention of improving the environmental character of decisions without burdening the processing with expensive analytical methods.It is directed to those individuals having to make public and corporate decisions who may not possess the staff or resources for more sophisticated life cycle-based analyses.It is being developed fundamentally as a method to compare two or more products, processes or activities, as opposed to design approaches to improve and existing activity. Currently, NRMRL has developed the concept for ETO and is in the midst of developing a practical methodology.