Details
The preliminary assessment combines baseline and proposed pilot scenarios using defined system boundaries, functional units and resource inventories. Its calculations include literature and proxy information alongside limited primary pilot data. At the same time, the physical pilots continue to refine their processes, participating actors and operating configurations.
This creates a need to keep the assessment model aligned with the implemented case. Process diagrams and inventories are reviewed with pilot partners, and later operational data are intended to strengthen the comparison. A baseline remains useful only when its scope and assumptions are consistent with the intervention being evaluated.
An unmatched baseline can overstate the material substitution or emissions benefit attributed to the project.
The collection-bag case identifies external recyclate as part of the existing operating system.
Further impact assessment needs to reflect this baseline and the actual material flows.