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Development and Evaluation of P2 Tools
EPA Goal 4: Ensuring the Safety of Chemicals and Preventing Pollution
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Introduction
The goal of the Pollution Prevention (P2) Tools research program is to develop decision support tools and methodologies that promote environmental stewardship and sustainable environmental management practices. Work in this area is focused on delivering the tools that will assist local, regional, and EPA leaders to reach outcomes that can be identified and measured by sustainability metrics.
The P2 Tools program is centered on life-cycle assessment (LCA), a method very well suited to helping decision makers to evaluate environmental impacts and trade-offs. A number of individual research projects are under way in this area, including an effort to integrate LCA techniques with material flow methods into a unified framework. Work is also being done on streamlining methods to reduce the burden and increase the efficiency of LCAs.
A multidisciplinary research team is developing a sustainable method for managing urban stormwater. The project has shown how auction-based markets can provide local communities with a low-cost and effective means to address the problem. An in-house effort to expand and update the very successful TRACI Environmental Impact Tool is taking the research beyond its original focus on chemical impacts. Work includes the development of new TRACI modules that will measure sustainability attributes, such as land use and water use. The products being developed can be used within TRACI or as stand-alone decision support tools.
An examination of the way LCA studies have analyzed the production of biofuels is under way, with the goal of identifying data gaps that must be filled in order to better understand the sustainability of renewable fuels.
The P2 Tools program provides a great example of how a program can both clearly define its outputs and capture information on how these outputs influence results. Each of the P2 Tools efforts is being conducted in close coordination with a partner/client office. This involvement helps guarantee that the products will be used. The program highlights the value of using pollution-prevention tools in the chain of events between decision making and the resolution of important environmental problems.
Environmental Issue or Problem
Millions of tons of pollution are produced annually in the United States. Tens of billions of dollars are spent each year controlling this pollution. Better tools, methods of detection, and management and prevention techniques are needed to address these diffuse and subtle sources of pollution.
An important component of any pollution prevention program is the ability to quantify the projected environmental benefits of, for example, purchasing and using green products or designing and constructing green buildings. Forecasting environmental benefits and measuring results is essential.
Controlling sources of pollution and recognizing the broad nature of environmental issues means pollution prevention is as important as ever. Developing and using the right tools means we can prevent problems before they occur.
Long-Term Goal and APGs Addressed
Science and Technology for Sustainability Multi-Year Plan (FY2008–2012) (PDF) (38 pp 248 KB, About PDF)
Contact
Douglas McKinney
Assistant Laboratory Director, Global | Sustainability | Mercury
Additonal Information