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Once GREENZERO Journey has generated an environmental assessment for your product, you’ll be presented with a wealth of information. This guide helps you understand what the results mean and how to use them to drive environmental improvements.

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Understanding Your Results Dashboard

The results dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of your product’s environmental performance:

Total Environmental Cost

The monetized value of all environmental impacts combined, expressed in euros. This single figure makes it easy to compare different products or design options.

Impact Category Breakdown

Shows how your product performs across all eight environmental impact categories, highlighting which impacts are most significant.

Hotspots Analysis

Identifies materials, components, or processes that contribute most significantly to environmental impacts.

Improvement Opportunities

Suggests potential changes that could reduce environmental impacts based on your specific product profile.

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Making Sense of Impact Categories

Each impact category measures a different type of environmental effect. Here’s how to interpret the results for each category:

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Climate Change (GWP)

  • What It Means
  • Units
  • Context
  • What to Look For
Measures your product’s contribution to global warming through greenhouse gas emissions. Higher values indicate greater potential to warm the climate.

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Acidification

  • What It Means
  • Units
  • Context
  • What to Look For
Measures emissions that can cause acid rain, which damages ecosystems, buildings, and water bodies.

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Freshwater Eutrophication

  • What It Means
  • Units
  • Context
  • What to Look For
Measures excess nutrients (particularly phosphorus) released to freshwater that cause excessive algae growth, depleting oxygen and harming aquatic life.

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Marine Eutrophication

  • What It Means
  • Units
  • Context
  • What to Look For
Similar to freshwater eutrophication but specifically for marine environments, focusing on nitrogen compounds.

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Summer Smog (Photochemical Ozone Creation)

  • What It Means
  • Units
  • Context
  • What to Look For
Measures emissions that can form ground-level ozone and smog, causing respiratory problems and plant damage.

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Ozone Depletion

  • What It Means
  • Units
  • Context
  • What to Look For
Measures substances that damage the Earth’s protective ozone layer.

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Water Use

  • What It Means
  • Units
  • Context
  • What to Look For
Measures the volume of freshwater consumed throughout the product life cycle.

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Land Use

  • What It Means
  • Units
  • Context
  • What to Look For
Measures the amount of land transformed or occupied for a product’s life cycle.

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Understanding Environmental Costs

GREENZERO Journey converts environmental impacts into monetary values using CE Delft cost factors. This makes it easier to:
  1. Compare Different Impact Types: By converting diverse impacts to a common unit (euros)
  2. Communicate with Non-Experts: Financial values are widely understood
  3. Integrate with Business Decisions: Environmental costs can be considered alongside traditional costs
Environmental costs represent the estimated societal cost of environmental damages, not direct costs to your business. However, they can indicate future financial risks as environmental regulations tighten.

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Analyzing Hotspots

The hotspots analysis identifies the materials, components, or processes that contribute most significantly to your product’s environmental impact. This is one of the most valuable parts of your assessment:
1

Identify Top Contributors

Look for materials or components that appear repeatedly across multiple impact categories. These represent your biggest improvement opportunities.
2

Understand Root Causes

For each hotspot, examine why it has high impacts: - Is it due to the material type? - Is it because of the quantity used? - Is it related to a specific manufacturing process? - Is it due to transportation distance or mode?
3

Prioritize Actions

Focus first on hotspots that: - Contribute to multiple impact categories - Have readily available alternatives - Can be addressed without compromising product function
The Pareto principle (80/20 rule) often applies to environmental impacts—roughly 80% of impacts typically come from 20% of materials or processes. Focus your improvement efforts on these key hotspots.

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Interpreting Data Quality Indicators

GREENZERO Journey provides information about the quality and reliability of your assessment results:
Indicates how much of your product is covered by the assessment. Higher completeness means more comprehensive results. What to look for: Aim for at least 95% completeness for reliable results. If completeness is lower, focus on adding information for significant materials first.
Indicates how well the environmental profiles match your specific materials and processes. What to look for: Higher quality scores mean more reliable results. If quality is lower for significant materials, consider providing more specific information about those materials.
Shows the potential variation in results based on data quality and methodological choices. What to look for: Wider uncertainty ranges indicate less precise results. However, even with uncertainty, the relative importance of different hotspots is usually reliable.

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From Insights to Action

The ultimate goal of environmental assessment is to drive improvements. Here’s how to translate your results into action:

Material Substitution

Replace high-impact materials with environmentally preferable alternatives. Example: Switching from virgin to recycled plastic, or from conventional to organic cotton.

Weight Reduction

Reduce the amount of material used while maintaining functionality. Example: Lightweighting packaging or optimizing product design to use less material.

Process Optimization

Improve manufacturing processes to reduce energy, water, or resource consumption. Example: Implementing more efficient dyeing processes for textiles.

Supplier Engagement

Work with suppliers to reduce impacts in your supply chain. Example: Selecting suppliers with renewable energy or requesting specific environmental improvements.

Transportation Changes

Optimize logistics to reduce transportation impacts. Example: Switching from air to sea freight or sourcing materials closer to manufacturing.

Design for Longevity

Increase product lifespan to reduce the environmental impact per use. Example: Improving durability or making products repairable.

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Communicating Results

Environmental assessment results can be valuable for both internal decision-making and external communication:

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Internal Communication

  • Executive Summaries: Focus on total environmental cost and top hotspots
  • Technical Deep Dives: Provide detailed breakdowns for R&D and sustainability teams
  • Comparative Analyses: Show how different products or designs compare

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External Communication

  • Sustainability Reports: Share aggregated portfolio performance
  • Marketing Materials: Highlight specific environmental achievements
  • Customer Communications: Provide transparent information about product impacts
When communicating environmental claims externally, ensure they are specific, accurate, and substantiated by your assessment results. Avoid vague terms like “eco-friendly” without specific evidence.

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Next Steps

After interpreting your first assessment results:
  1. Create an Improvement Plan: Prioritize actions based on hotspots and feasibility
  2. Model Improvement Scenarios: Use GREENZERO Journey to simulate the effects of potential changes
  3. Implement Changes: Make the most promising improvements to your product
  4. Reassess: Generate a new assessment to measure your progress
  5. Expand Scope: Apply what you’ve learned to other products in your portfolio
Environmental improvement is a journey, not a destination. Start with the changes that offer the biggest benefits, then continuously refine and improve your products over time.
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