All the following are key factors included in an environmental assessment EXCEPT

5.2 Stages in Life Cycle Assessment

Life cycle assessment is a technique for assessing the environmental aspects associated with a product over its life cycle. The most important applications are these:

analysis of the contribution of the life cycle stages to the overall environmental load, usually with the aim to prioritize improvements on products or processes

comparison between products for internal use

An LCA study consists of four stages:

Stage 1: Goal and scope aims to define how big a part of product life cycle will be taken in assessment and to what end will assessment be serving. The criteria serving to system comparison and specific times are described in this step.

Stage 2: In this step, inventory analysis gives a description of material and energy flows within the product system and especially its interaction with environment, consumed raw materials, and emissions to the environment. All important processes and subsidiary energy and material flows are described later.

Stage 3: Details from inventory analysis serve for impact assessment. The indicator results of all impact categories are detailed in this step; the importance of every impact category is assessed by normalization and eventually also by weighting.

Stage 4: Interpretation of a life cycle involves critical review, determination of data sensitivity, and result presentation.

Fig. 5.1 gives the four stages under the ISO 14040 guidelines.

When undertaking a life cycle assessment study the following issues need to be addressed:

The burdens imposed on the environment by human activities may be ascertained by accounting for the resources and energy (inputs) consumed at each stage in the life cycle of a product and the resulting pollutants and wastes (outputs) emitted. The inputs and outputs are then assessed for their adverse impacts on long-term sustainability of renewable and nonrenewable resources, human health, and biodiversity, amongst others. Once these are known, measures may be taken to mitigate the impact of the outputs (or inventories) on the environment.

The utilization of LCA method can help in the following:

searching the most available life cycles, e.g., those with minimal negative impact on environment,

assuming the decisions in industry, public organizations, or NGOs, which determine direction and priorities in strategic planning, design or design product, or process change,

choose important indicators of environmental behavior of organization including measurement and assessing techniques, mainly in connection with the assessment of the state of its environment,

marketing with the link on formulation of environmental declaration or eco-labeling

29.10 Source of additional information

LCA applications in industrial contexts have been published [13–15]. There are several LCA software packages such as SimaPro, GaBi, Umberto, OpenLCA, and databases available that readers can explore further. The LCA discipline has publications covering relevant studies in established scientific journals, predominantly in the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, the Journal of Cleaner Production, and the Journal of Industrial Ecology.

International standards provide principles and framework for undertaking LCAs. LCA should include a definition of goal and scope, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation of results, as its phases are illustrated in ISO [7]. International Standards series [16–18] provide further details on each of the steps and stages. Recently published ISO [19] provides guidelines for undertaking water footprints in LCA.

There are a number of UNEP LCA guidelines that provided excellent sources of information on this topic [20].

26.2.1 The future needs of decision makers: A combined LCA and LCC framework

LCA is a methodology for evaluating the environmental impacts of a product or process from its origin to its final disposal. LCA has been widely used in assessing waste management systems since it compares the environmental performances of different waste management options (Ekvall et al., 2007). LCC is a method accounting for all the economic costs of a product or service along its life span. Despite LCA and LCC present some similarities in their approach, they are designed to answer different questions: LCA evaluates and compares the environmental profiles of alternative product systems, while LCC compares the cost-effectiveness of these alternatives from the perspective of an economic policymaker (Norris, 2001). Previous authors (see, i.e., Carlsson Reich, 2005; Hoogmartens et al., 2014) have already underlined the advantages in combining LCA and LCC to support policymakers, as the two models can effectively complement their results and provide a relevant environmental and economic analysis. According to Hunkeler et al. (2008), however, both LCA and LCC must share the same basic assumptions. Many different types of LCA and LCC have been developed. An accurate classification can be found in the previous scientific literature (see Carlsson Reich, 2005; Earles et al., 2013; Hoogmartens et al., 2014; Wenzel, 1998). For the current study, an attributional LCA and a financial LCC are used to analyze the environmental and economic aspects of different alternatives in CDW management. Attributional LCA is defined by its focus on describing the environmental relevant flows within the chosen temporal window, while a financial LCC accounts for all the financial costs borne by all actors throughout the same temporal window, including the already-internalized costs due to external environmental effects (e.g., emissions or landfill tax). The rest of the study will refer to attributional LCA and financial LCC as simply LCA and LCC, respectively.

Levels of LCA

LCA methodology can be categorised into three levels based on technological details:

Conceptual LCA – First level of LCA based on limited environmental aspects of few life cycle stages where there is still some improvement potential existing for the manufacturer. The results might be useful for qualitative reporting of assessment results, but not suitable for corporate marketing or explicit publication of LCA study.

Simplified LCA – This is the type of comprehensive assessment using generic datasets covering the whole life cycle of a product/system of processes. The time required and expenditures as well reduce significantly here, which is a significant difference from detailed LCA. This consists of a screening of life cycle stages, simplification of LCA results for future recommendation and assuring the reliability of the analysis results. This is often termed as ‘Streamlined LCA’.

Detailed LCA – This type of LCA is comprehensive with the full consideration of each life cycle stages with system-specific datasets and analysed in detail for further process improvement.

1.7.5 Future of LCA

LCA is widely used in many organization as a tool for environmental analysis, but nowadays LCA has also broadened to include life cycle costing (LCC) and social LCA (SLCA) covering all three dimensions of sustainability (i.e., people, planet, and prosperity). With these developments, LCA has broadened from merely environmental assessment to a more comprehensive life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA).

LCSA works with many models and guides, selecting the proper ones, given a specific sustainability question. In this analysis the main challenge is structuring, selecting, and making a practically available model about different types of LCSA. Although it is mentioned in the definition of LCA in ISO that there is not only one specific method, this is a tangible difference compared to the LCA. The broaden to economic and social issues in this analysis is another disagreement with LCA, which is limited to the environmental issue only [12]. So far, LCSA has had very little use. SLCA has been neglected in the past but is now beginning to be developed. One of the challenges is how to relate the social indicators (i.e., social impact assessment) to the functional unit of the product system [10]. The LCSA (assessment) approach is the most developed but has been criticized for a mechanistic perspective that prevents full understanding of the mutual interdependencies of the three pillars of sustainability [8].

2.2.1 Product sustainability life cycle assessment: a brief introduction

Details about the LCA concept, including its history, theory, methods, models and standards, will be presented in Chapter 6, but a brief outline about LCA is presented here.

LCA is the crux of eco-design, dealing with the design approach of a product with full consideration to the environmental impacts made by the product in its entire life cycle. The LCA analyses the effects on the environment by both the use of resources (inputs) and the emissions created by a given process (outputs).

Inputs

raw materials

water

energy

chemicals and other auxiliaries.

Outputs

product

co-product

solid waste

air emissions

water emissions

emissions to land.

This whole quantification process starts at the raw material production and extraction phase, then spans the manufacturing process, progressing later into packaging, distribution, retail, use and disposal phases. Figure. 2.1 depicts the various phases involved in the life cycle of a product considered for the quantification of LCA. The analysis is not complete once the different inputs and outputs have been collected, this is only the initial step. These input and output details, termed as life cycle inventory, will be converted to mathematical models for analysis, a phase defined as ‘impact assessment’. These impacts are then quantified in the LCA and related to a three-tier scale, namely, local, regional and global.

LCA can measure a long list of impacts on local, regional and global levels, for example,

climate change (carbon footprint)

ecological footprint

water footprint

acidification

eutrophication

human toxicity

energy footprint

ozone depletion potential

photochemical oxidation potential

smog

depletion of biotic and abiotic resources

eco-damage

land use.

LCA can be conducted for a range of products, processes and services. It can be performed in two steps: a screening or preliminary assessment and a detailed or full-scale assessment. Details of these steps will be shown in Chapter 6.

LCA quantifications can be carried out in many forms, which are labelled as variants of LCA. Following are the most popular of these variants:

Cradle to grave—a full life cycle assessment that includes all the stages of a life cycle.

Cradle to gate—an LCA that deals only with the raw material extraction, production, manufacturing, packaging and transportation processes. It assesses only the activities that occur within the factory. It will not include the distribution, consumer use and disposal phases.

Cradle to cradle – typically a cradle to grave assessment, where the end-of-life stage of a product is a recycling process, thereby the product will not be discarded after the end of life.

These variants, along with others, will be discussed in detail in Chapter 6.

22.5.2 Limitations of LCA

LCA studies work on various assumptions and scenarios and assesses the real world in a simplified model, therefore sometimes lead to skepticism about LCA results. In addition, LCA is a data driven tool and if data quality is poor or insufficient data is available, the study will not lead to effective conclusions. Also, it is not easy to communicate outputs of a LCA study. LCA typically provides results on several environmental impacts and generate more than one product which create confusion. Further, a more detailed analysis is needed to explain the differences and highlight the benefits and drawbacks of both products. It can be difficult for decision makers to take precise decision. ISO Life Cycle Impact Assessment document (ISO/FDIS, 1999) specifically cautions that LCA does not predict actual impacts.

Introduction to life cycle assessment (LCA)

Life cycle assessment (LCA), also called environmental LCA, is a systematic, standardized approach to quantifying the potential environmental impacts of a product or process that occur from raw materials extraction to end of life. The methodologies for LCA are defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14,040 series (ISO 2006a; ISO 2006b).

LCA results can help determine areas of improvement in production processes, aid strategic planning, and inform public policy. LCAs enable the comparison of different products, allowing practitioners to answer questions like, “How do the environmental impacts of beans compare to those of beef?” (Harwatt et al. 2017). LCAs are also used to improve product, process, or system design; an LCA can identify the areas of production with high environmental burden, enabling the design and comparison of alternative production pathways. For example, an LCA can show that replacing a deep straw manure management system with a slurry system reduces ammonia and nitrate emissions, thereby reducing the acidification and eutrophication impacts of beef production (Cederberg et al. 2003).

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an environmental management tool, which can be used to evaluate the impact of a product, a system, or an activity on the environment. LCC is the concrete application of the LCA in its economic aspect. However, the LCA and the LCC are not enough to evaluate impact on the environment. Thus, S-LCA comes up, which focuses on the social impact of human activities. This paper mainly introduces the development (in Section 5.1), definition, goal, classification, and framework (in other sections, respectively) of LCIA. The relationship of LCA, LCC, and S-LCA is introduced first. In the following sections, the LCA, LCC, and S-LCA are described in detail. Section 5.4 introduces the difference and similarity between LCA and S-LCA, while Section 5.5 looks at the theory, the practice, and the existing problems of the LCSA, along with a summary of three life cycle assessment methods.