Toward harmonizing ecotoxicity characterization in life cycle impact assessment

Abstract

Ecosystem quality is an important area of protection in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). Chemical pollution has adverse impacts on ecosystems on a global scale. To improve methods for assessing ecosystem impacts, the Life Cycle Initiative hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme established a task force to evaluate the state-of-the-science in modeling chemical exposure of organisms and the resulting ecotoxicological effects for use in LCIA. The outcome of the task force work will be global guidance and harmonization by recommending changes to the existing practice of exposure and effect modeling in ecotoxicity characterization. These changes will reflect the current science and ensure the stability of recommended practice. Recommendations must work within the needs of LCIA in terms of 1) operating on information from any inventory reporting chemical emissions with limited spatiotemporal information, 2) applying best estimates rather than conservative assumptions to ensure unbiased comparison with results for other impact categories, and 3) yielding results that are additive across substances and life cycle stages and that will allow a quantitative expression of damage to the exposed ecosystem. We describe the current framework and discuss research questions identified in a roadmap. Primary research questions relate to the approach toward ecotoxicological effect assessment, the need to clarify the method's scope and interpretation of its results, the need to consider additional environmental compartments and impact pathways, and the relevance of effect metrics other than the currently applied geometric mean of toxicity effect data across species. Because they often dominate ecotoxicity results in LCIA, we give metals a special focus, including consideration of their possible essentiality and changes in environmental bioavailability. We conclude with a summary of key questions along with preliminary recommendations to address them as well as open questions that require additional research efforts. Environ Toxicol Chem 2018;37:2955-2971. © 2018 SETAC.

Towards integrating toxicity characterization into environmental studies: case study of bromine in soils

“…Quantifying life cycle toxicity impacts based on existing actual pollutant levels in soil will, in addition, be useful in complementing pollutant threshold levels by uncovering potential tradeoffs between different multi-media fates and multipathway exposures, related to soil contaminants contributing to potentially negative impacts on humans and the environment (Fantke et al 2018a(Fantke et al , 2018b. In the present study, we focus on the following three objectives: (1) to determine the cumulative mass of bromine in soil in the different districts of Tomsk oblast and discuss potential sources; (2) to characterize cumulative human toxicity and ecotoxicity impact potentials of bromine mass in soils of Tomsk oblast; and (3) to identify existing challenges of combining environmental studies with screeninglevel toxicity characterization, and to discuss future research needs as input to develop operational methods for mitigating contamination from emissions of inorganic substances.…”

Building a European exposure science strategy

“…Compared with toxicology, however, exposure science is still ill developed as an independent discipline [2,4]. Yet, it has become an indispensable element in various science and policy frameworks, from policy analysis to sustainability assessment [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13], and has been proposed as an important component in chemical substitution [14,15]. Although many regulations and studies focus on exposure to chemicals, assessing and managing exposure to other stressors is increasingly acknowledged.…”

“…To identify such key needs, two surveys were developed targeting exposure science professionals representing a wide spectrum of stakeholders. The first survey was conducted in 2016 and sent to all 560 participants attending the ISES 26 th Annual Meeting, [9][10][11][12][13] October, in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Participants were asked to provide their visions for exposure science in Europe in five and ten years, to identify the main drivers for exposure science, and how they see the role of a European chapter of ISES for improving exposure information and its policy uptake.…”

Extrapolation Factors for Characterizing Freshwater Ecotoxicity Effects

“…Currently, REACH is one of the most comprehensive and updated online databases of physicochemical, human toxicity, and ecotoxicity information for chemicals. Using REACH as a potential data source in various policy and science fields has been widely discussed (Askham 2012;Luechtefeld et al 2016;Gustavsson et al 2017;Müller et al 2017;Saouter et al 2017aSaouter et al , 2017bSaouter et al , 2019aSaouter et al , 2019bFantke et al 2018). A common conclusion across studies is that data submitted under REACH require a careful curation (e.g., species name harmonization, unit checks) before they are used.…”