Evaluation of environmental performance and a way towards sustainability with LCA in the region of North Hungary

Abstract

The region of Northern Hungary, and especially the county of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, is one of the most controversial regions in Hungary. Despite its excellent natural and environmental potentials, and its role in preserving traditional culture and its role as an umbilical cord, it is in a very difficult situation regarding the economy and social progress: its performance indicators or the indices related to sustainability and measuring human development cannot be claimed to be good. However, the positive changes in the recent period -e.g. in terms of the environmental compliance of companies, waste emission, use of chemicals in agriculture, institutional development, programmed awareness raising and shaping attitudes in general and higher education -hold out hope.In our presentation we would like to present the current situation of industrial/energy sector in the Northern Hungarian Region, and evaluate the environmental performance of power plants and chemical companies with LCA analyses. Generally, it can be mentioned that, in Hungary only the first steps of LCA applications can be observed. However, during the last few years, several initiatives appeared in LCA researches in our country. For instance, some companies began to evaluate their environmental performance with LCA software in order to correspond to the principles of sustainable development.This paper gives an overview on our LCA works, projects and results, which can have a positive effect both on regional and country sustainability performances.