Meta-analysis of damage costs related to health, the built environment and the ecosystem

This report addresses damage costs related to the negative effects that may occur on human health, the built environment, or the eco-system, when hazardous substances are released from the products they were originally contained in. More specifically, the report focuses on the external cost of damages. Here, three different models for monetary valuation of externalities have been studied in more detail; that is the EPS system, LIME and ExternE/NewExt/NEEDS. These models all assess costs of impacts to human health and ecosystem production capacity. The EPS system and LIME also addresses costs related to biodiversity while ExternE/NewExt/NEEDS is the model that focuses most on damages to the built environment. The monetary weighting factors presented in the different models are quite similar in size; most often the different models value the same externality within a factor of 10. A case study was also made to show how emissions can be linked to damage costs for a certain substance, here the substance lead. The main negative effect caused by emissions of lead was assessed to the IQ decrement. For the case of lead, damage costs are approximately 2680-5900 €/emitted kg Pb according to Spadaro & Rabl (2004) and 1.58-2910 €/emitted kg Pb according to Steen (1999b).Svensk sammanfattning...This report addresses damage costs related to the negative effects that may occur on human health, the built environment, or the eco-system, when hazardous substances are released from the products they were originally contained in. More specifically, the report focuses on the external cost of damages. Here, three different models for monetary valuation of externalities have been studied in more detail; that is the EPS system, LIME and ExternE/NewExt/NEEDS. These models all assess costs of impacts to human health and ecosystem production capacity. The EPS system and LIME also addresses costs related to biodiversity while ExternE/NewExt/NEEDS is the model that focuses most on damages to the built environment. The monetary weighting factors presented in the different models are quite similar in size; most often the different models value the same externality within a factor of 10. A case study was also made to show how emissions can be linked to damage costs for a certain substance, here the substance lead. The main negative effect caused by emissions of lead was assessed to the IQ decrement. For the case of lead, damage costs are approximately 2680-5900 €/emitted kg Pb according to Spadaro & Rabl (2004) and 1.58-2910 €/emitted kg Pb according to Steen (1999b).Svensk sammanfattning..