This document is an appendix to the 'Sustainable Materials Management: The Road Ahead' report, which discusses materials management and how best to provide for human needs and prosperity while using fewer materials, reducing toxic products and waste, and recovering more of the materials used. It provides a few demonstration projects to show the value of life cycle materials management and gain greater insight on integrating policies and programs around materials management.
The associated appendix lays out the analysis performed to identify potential candidates for the demonstration projects. The "2020 Vision Relative Ranking of Materials, Products, and Services Using a Selected Environmental Criteria" (referred to as the Relative Ranking Analysis) uses the best available data and a multi-factor analytical approach to relatively rank 480 materials, products, and services consumed in the U.S. economy on five environmental aspects. This information was used to help identify materials, products, and services where taking a materials management approach potentially could provide significant benefits across multiple environmental aspects.