Lca Life Cycle Assessment

INTRO TO LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

LCA introduction and definition INTRODUCTION

Life cycle assessment helps to quantify and compare the environmental impacts of providing goods and services (“products”) to the societies. Therefore, it is one of the important methods to achieve “sustainable development”. These products go through a cycle as shown below. Figure 1: LCA cycle

During the product cycle, there would be a stage where it can be harmful to the environment due to emissions of substances into the natural environment, consumption of resources and other environmental exchanges. In the LCA, the design/development phase is usually out of importance as it is assumed not to contribute significantly. However, it is important to note that the

The proto-LCAs had two features including system comparison by functional unit and cradle-to-grave analysis. In addition, they consisted of a life cycle inventory (LCI) and rudimentary form of impact analysis. The LCA focused more on energy saving and resource conservation rather than on pollution. (Klöpffer, n.d.).

The very early history of ‘proto-LCAs’ in the late 1960s when both Franklin and Hunt worked at Midwestern Research Institute (MRI), and they invited personal account in the first issue Of Int J Life Cycle Assessment and the first study was done for Coca Cola Company. In Europe, the first proto-LCA was in the early 1970s at Battelle Institute, which was about the comparative assessment of beverage containers (Klöpffer, n.d.).

After 1988, the LCA studies were shared globally, and the first international cooperation was with Battelle Memorial Institute (Columbus, Ohio, USA) and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). The first LCA PhD dissertation in Germany was performed at the Technical University Berlin, later to become one of the centers of LCA research (Klöpffer,

• Gives help to decision-makers to process in industry, governmental or non-governmental organizations such as strategic planning.

• Selection of relevant measures and techniques of environmental performance.

• Marketing where it can assist in some aspects such as environmental claim and environmental product declaration.

LCA limitations can include the following:

• The assumptions and the nature of choices made in LCA can be subjective that includes system boundary setting, selection of data sources and impact categories

• The LCA study could be limited by the assumptions made on models used for inventory analysis or to assess environmental impacts, therefore there may not be a complete vision for all potential impacts or applications.

• Results conducted from global or regional LCA study may not be appropriate for local applications and therefore local results might not be adequately represented by regional or global conditions.

• Data limitations or quality may affect on the accuracy of LCA studies such as gaps, types of data, average, aggregation and site