Michiel Zijp

National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) | RIVM · Centre for Sustainability, Environment and Health (DMG)

Aim Land use is a main driver of biodiversity loss worldwide. However, quantifying its effects on global plant diversity remains a challenge due to the limited availability of data on the distributions of vascular plant species and their responses to land use. Here, we estimated the global extinction threat of land use to vascular plant species bas...

Background Studies suggest that the Dutch health-care sector is responsible for 4–8% of the national carbon footprint, but the environmental footprint of this sector beyond climate change is not well understood. Therefore, we aimed to estimate the environmental footprint of the Dutch health-care sector for a range of environmental impact categories...

Governments contribute to the transition toward a circular economy (CE) by using criteria in their procurement processes that trigger the supply of circular products and services, namely circular public procurement (CPP). CPP practices are emerging in Europe. However, the effect of CPP is not yet monitored and hence remains unclear. What is the eff...

To overcome barriers and make a societal transition towards a safe, healthy, and sustainable circular economy, realistic and ambitious solutions need to be identified. This study improves the Solution-focused Sustainability Assessment framework (SfSA) with a ‘chain approach’, which aims to involve stakeholders from across a product chain of interes...

Knowledge of ecological responses to changes in the environment is vital to design appropriate measures for conserving biodiversity. Experimental studies are the standard to identify ecological cause-effect relationships, but their results do not necessarily translate to field situations. Deriving ecological cause-effect relationships from observat...

Purpose Recently, an update of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) method ReCiPe was released: ReCiPe 2016. The aim of this study was to analyse the effect of using this update instead of the previous version: ReCiPe 2008. Do the absolute outcomes change significantly and if so, does this lead to different conclusions and result-based recommend...

Aquatic ecosystems are affected by man-made pressures, often causing combined impacts. The analysis of the impacts of chemical pollution is however commonly separate from that of other pressures and their impacts. This evolved from differences in the data available for applied ecology vis-à-vis applied ecotoxicology, which are field gradients and l...

The article [ReCiPe2016: a harmonised life cycle impact assessment method at midpoint and endpoint level], written by [Mark A. J. Huijbregts · Zoran J. N. Steinmann · Pieter M. F. Elshout · Gea Stam · Francesca Verones · Marisa Vieira · Michiel Zijp · Anne Hollander · Rosalie van Zelm], was originally published Online First without Open Access. Aft...

The chemical industry strives for the development of bio-based alternatives to prepare for the transition towards a sustainable biobasedeconomy. Key in this transition is ‘safe and sustainable by design’. This entails that safety and sustainability must be taken into account at the earliest possible development stages. A remaining challenge is how...

Change agents for Corporate Sustainability (CS) play an important role for companies when integrating CS into their business activities. While change agents can be differentiated by their worldviews, little is known about the contextual factors influencing their success in supporting CS integration. By proposing and illustrating an analytical model...

Advisory bodies such as the World Health Organization and the Dutch Health Council (DHC) recommend including fatty fish in one’s diet, based on the health benefits of their content of n − 3 poly unsaturated fatty acids (eicosapentaenoic acid—EPA and docosahexaenoic acid—DHA) being, i.e., the reduction of the risk of fatal cardio vascular disease an...

The present paper considers the collection and use of ecotoxicity data for risk assessment with Species Sensitivity Distributions (SSDs) of chemical pollution in surface water. SSDs are used to quantify the likelihood that critical effect levels are exceeded. This fits to the European Water Framework Directive, which suggest using models to assess...

Responses of ecosystems to human-induced stress vary in space and time, because both stressors and ecosystem vulnerabilities vary in space and time. Presently, ecosystem impact assessments mainly take into account variation in stressors, without considering variation in ecosystem vulnerability. We developed a method to address ecosystem vulnerabili...

In this Ph.D. thesis Michiel Zijp proposes and illustrates solutions to improve the utility of sustainability assessments. He provides theory and case studies on context-specific method selection and use of boundaries for our natural environment, with solution-focused sustainability assessments as core of the work.

Een duurzaam voedselsysteem is een systeem dat voorziet in de voedsel-en voedingsmidde-lenbehoefte van zowel huidige als toekom-stige generaties, waarbij ook de ecologische systemen op aarde worden beschermd. Het huidige voedselsysteem is op wereldschaal verantwoordelijk voor ongeveer 25% van de totale broeikasgasemissies en voor 60% van het verlie...

Climate change and fossil resource depletion are driving a transition to a bio-based economy, for which novel bio-based chemical processes need to be developed. The environmental performance of the novel bio-based chemicals should be assessed during their development, when the production process can still be adapted, although data availability is l...

Sustainability assessments provide scientific support in decision procedures towards sustainable solutions. However, in order to contribute in identifying and choosing sustainable solutions, the sustainability assessment has to fit the decision context. Two complicating factors exist. First, different stakeholders tend to have different views on wh...

PurposeLife cycle impact assessment (LCIA) translates emissions and resource extractions into a limited number of environmental impact scores by means of so-called characterisation factors. There are two mainstream ways to derive characterisation factors, i.e. at midpoint level and at endpoint level. To further progress LCIA method development, we...

Health councils recommend higher fish consumption because of its associated health benefits. However, overfishing is considered the main threat to marine fisheries. To answer to the global fish demand, cultivated fish production continues to grow and may come with environmental concerns. This study aims to evaluate environmental sustainability and...

Sustainability assessments can play an important role in decision making. This role starts with selecting appropriate methods for a given situation. We observed that scientists, consultants, and decision-makers often do not systematically perform a problem analyses that guides the choice of the method, partly related to a lack of systematic, though...

Due to the great variety in behavior and modes of action of chemicals, impact assessment of multiple substances is complex, as is the communication of its results. Given calls for cumulative impact assessments, we developed a methodology that is aimed at expressing the expected cumulative impacts of mixtures of chemicals on aquatic ecosystems for a...

VIEWPOINT Section: Air Pollution and Industrial Hygiene

Verwachten we dat de milieudoelstellingen uit de Europese Kaderrichtlijn Water (KRW) worden gehaald? Om de zes jaar staat deze vraag centraal tijdens het bijwerken van de karakterisering van waterlichamen. Hoe deze vraag kan worden beantwoord voor grondwaterlichamen is uitgewerkt in dit rapport. Het bijwerken van de karakterisering bestaat uit dive...

De Europese Kaderrichtlijn Water (KRW), Grondwaterrichtlijn (GWR) en bijbehorende richtsnoeren bevatten geen eenduidige definitie van conceptuele modellen, die nodig zijn om de richtlijnen uit te voeren. Dit blijkt uit onderzoek van het RIVM, waarin het gebruik van conceptuele modellen is geinventariseerd. Daarnaast blijkt uit het onderzoek dat de...

Nederland heeft een monitoringprogramma opgesteld om te voldoen aan het voorschrift uit de Europese Kaderrichtlijn Water (KRW) om het grondwater regelmatig te meten. Dit KRW Monitoringprogramma Grondwaterkwaliteit (KMG) kan op een aantal punten worden verbeterd om het meer in lijn te brengen met de formele randvoorwaarden. Zo moet het conceptuele m...

Het RIVM heeft een protocol opgesteld waarmee de grondwaterbeheerders in Nederland de chemische toestand van grondwaterlichamen op eenduidige wijze kunnen beoordelen. Nederland is verplicht om elke zes jaar de Europese Commissie te rapporteren over de chemische en kwantitatieve toestand van grondwater. De grondwaterbeheerders bij provincies voeren...

Dit rapport bevat een advies aan het ministerie van VROM over de selectie van stoffen in grondwater waarvoor drempelwaarden moeten worden afgeleid. Daarnaast bevat het adviezen over een procedure voor die afleiding en over de hoogte van drempelwaarden. Drempelwaarden zijn kwaliteitsnormen die beogen de mens en ecosystemen te beschermen. De Europese...

Dit protocol is een voorschrift voor de grondwaterbeheerders in Nederland, waarmee op eenduidige wijze de beoordeling van de chemische toestand van grondwaterlichamen kan worden uitgevoerd. Dit is niet het definitieve protocol. In 2008 zal dit theoretische concept worden getoetst aan de praktijk en de knelpunten die in dit protocol staan aangegeven...

Nederland zal in sommige situaties niet kunnen voldoen aan de doelen die de Europese Kaderrichtlijn Water (KRW) stelt en die in 2015 moeten zijn gehaald. Dit is bijvoorbeeld het geval op locaties waar in het verleden grote grondwaterverontreinigingen zijn ontstaan die niet binnen de gestelde termijn kunnen worden opgeruimd. In zo'n geval is het nod...

There will be situations in which the Netherlands is not able to meet the objectives of the European Water Framework Directive. The RIVM presents a methodology for using applications of extensions. The deadline of the Water Framework Directive objectives is 2015. Example of such goal is obtaining a good groundwater quality for protecting terrestria...