About Mainly Used Sustainability Metrics


Name	Role
Weight	Quantity expressing the amount of matter.
Environmental Footprint	Damage to the planet, measured in global hectares (gha).
CO₂ Emissions	Human emissions of greenhouse gases expressed in C0₂ equivalent that cause environmental and social changes.
Ozone layer depletion	Gradual thinning of the Earth's ozone layer in the upper atmosphere caused by the release of chemical compounds containing gaseous chlorine or bromine from industry and other human activities.
Photochemical ozone creation	Formed through the concentration of a variety of highly reactive gases in the atmosphere and are often implicated in problems of smog, crop damage and the degradation of works of art.
Acidification	Acidification is mainly caused by air emissions of NH₃, NO₂ and SOx.
Water Use	Characterizes the water depletion according to scarcity adjusted mass of water used.
Land Use	Damage to the soil: a mix between the erosion resistance, the mechanical filtration, the physico-chemical filtration, the groundwater regeneration and the biotic production.
Fossil Depletion	Impact category for fossil fuels. Impacting the resource depletion as energy carriers.
Minerals and metals depletion	Represents the abiotic resource depletion, quantified in kg of antimony-equivalent (Sb-eq) per kg extraction.
Freshwater Ecotoxicity	Toxic effect on aquatic freshwater species. Measured in Comparative Toxic Unit for ecosystems.
Freshwater Eutrophication	Refers to the excessive growth of aquatic plants or algal blooms, due to high levels of nutrients in freshwater.
Marine Eutrophication	Marine eutrophication is one of the key local stressors for coastal marine ecosystems, particularly in those locations with many estuaries.
Terrestrial Eutrophication	It does not only refer to organisms in soil or on plants but also to the inhabitants of aquatic sediments.
Respiratory effects	Particulate matter formation and respiratory inorganics. Human health effects associated with exposure to PM2.5.
Carcinogenic effects	The emission of some substances (such as heavy metals) have impacts on human health (carcinogenic effects).
Non-Carcinogenic effects	Short-duration and intermittent exposures of humans to chemicals. Result in non-carcinogenic effects. Measured in Comparative Toxic Unit for human (CTUh).
Ionising Radiation	Ionising radiation is the energy produced from natural or artificial sources. It has more energy than non-ionising radiation, enough to cause chemical changes by breaking chemical bonds. This effect can cause damage to the living tissue.