SDG-Evaluation of Products (SEP) is a method for the sustainability evaluation of products and services based on the approach of life cycle assessment. SEP consists of three building blocks and optional aggregation:
- THE SYSTEM ANALYSIS: This is the basis for carrying out a sustainability assessment, as the system under consideration is analysed here. At SEP, this is carried out analogously to the procedure described in ISO 14040/44.
- THE SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS: These are SEP's measurements and are pre-defined. This ensures that contributions to the SDGs of Agenda 2030 are measured and that this is done in a uniform manner. In SEP, 45 indicators have been defined, 22 of which are core indicators that must be used in a product sustainability evaluation.
- THE SUSTAINABILITY EVALUATION: This is the core of the method and aims to measure the contribution of the product or service to the respective SDGs using the defined indicators. At the level of the individual indicators, the result shows in which of the addressed sustainability issues the product is already good and in which there is still need for improvement.
Optionally, the results can be aggregated following the evaluation.