Professional Documents
Culture Documents
assessment
and
LCI Methods
Process LCA
Economic Input Output LCA
Hybrid Approach
Reference test
More specifically, the best alternative is
the one that the LCA shows to have the
least cradle-to-grave environmental
negative impact on land, sea, and air
resources.[14]
LCA uses
Based on a survey of LCA practitioners
carried out in 2006[15] LCA is mostly used
to support business strategy (18%) and
R&D (18%), as input to product or process
design (15%), in education (13%) and for
labeling or product declarations (11%).
LCA will be continuously integrated into
the built environment as tools such as the
European ENSLIC Building project
guidelines for buildings or developed and
implemented, which provide practitioners
guidance on methods to implement LCI
data into the planning and design
process.[16]
Data analysis
A life cycle analysis is only as valid as its
data; therefore, it is crucial that data used
for the completion of a life cycle analysis
are accurate and current. When comparing
different life cycle analyses with one
another, it is crucial that equivalent data
are available for both products or
processes in question. If one product has
a much higher availability of data, it cannot
be justly compared to another product
which has less detailed data.[21]
soca
EuGeos' 15804-IA
NEEDS
ecoinvent
PSILCA
ESU World Food
GaBi
ELCD
LC-Inventories.ch
Social Hotspots
ProBas
bioenergiedat
Agribalyse
USDA
Ökobaudat
Agri-footprint
Comprehensive Environmental Data
Archive (CEDA)[24]
Variants
Cradle-to-grave
Cradle-to-gate
Cradle-to-gate is an assessment of a
partial product life cycle from resource
extraction (cradle) to the factory gate (i.e.,
before it is transported to the consumer).
The use phase and disposal phase of the
product are omitted in this case. Cradle-to-
gate assessments are sometimes the
basis for environmental product
declarations (EPD) termed business-to-
business EDPs.[25] One of the significant
uses of the cradle-to-gate approach
compiles the life cycle inventory (LCI)
using cradle-to-gate. This allows the LCA
to collect all of the impacts leading up to
resources being purchased by the facility.
They can then add the steps involved in
their transport to plant and manufacture
process to more easily produce their own
cradle-to-gate values for their products.[26]
Gate-to-gate
Energy production
Energy recovery
Criticism
It has also been argued that energy
efficiency is only one consideration in
deciding which alternative process to
employ, and that it should not be elevated
to the only criterion for determining
environmental acceptability. For example,
simple energy analysis does not take into
account the renewability of energy flows
or the toxicity of waste products;[50].
Incorporating Dynamic LCAs of renewable
energy technologies (using sensitivity
analyses to project future improvements in
renewable systems and their share of the
power grid) may help mitigate this
criticism.[51]
In recent years, the literature on life cycle
assessment of energy technology has
begun to reflect the interactions between
the current electrical grid and future
energy technology. Some papers have
focused on energy life cycle,[52][53][54] while
others have focused on carbon dioxide
(CO2) and other greenhouse gases.[55] The
essential critique given by these sources is
that when considering energy technology,
the growing nature of the power grid must
be taken into consideration. If this is not
done, a given class of energy technology
may emit more CO2 over its lifetime than it
mitigates.
A problem the energy analysis method
cannot resolve is that different energy
forms (heat, electricity, chemical energy
etc.) have different quality and value even
in natural sciences, as a consequence of
the two main laws of thermodynamics. A
thermodynamic measure of the quality of
energy is exergy. According to the first law
of thermodynamics, all energy inputs
should be accounted with equal weight,
whereas by the second law diverse energy
forms should be accounted by different
values.
Critiques
Life cycle assessment is a powerful tool
for analyzing commensurable aspects of
quantifiable systems. Not every factor,
however, can be reduced to a number and
inserted into a model. Rigid system
boundaries make accounting for changes
in the system difficult. This is sometimes
referred to as the boundary critique to
systems thinking. The accuracy and
availability of data can also contribute to
inaccuracy. For instance, data from
generic processes may be based on
averages, unrepresentative sampling, or
outdated results.[57] Additionally, social
implications of products are generally
lacking in LCAs. Comparative life-cycle
analysis is often used to determine a
better process or product to use. However,
because of aspects like differing system
boundaries, different statistical
information, different product uses, etc.,
these studies can easily be swayed in
favor of one product or process over
another in one study and the opposite in
another study based on varying
parameters and different available data.[58]
There are guidelines to help reduce such
conflicts in results but the method still
provides a lot of room for the researcher
to decide what is important, how the
product is typically manufactured, and
how it is typically used.
Streamline LCA
See also
Agroecology
Agroecosystem analysis
Anthropogenic metabolism
Biofuel
Carbon footprint
Circular Economy
Cradle to Cradle
Depreciation
Design for Environment
Dimension stone Stone: life-cycle
assessment and best practices
Ecodesign
End-of-life (product)
Environmental pricing reform
Greenhouse gas
GREET Model
Industrial ecology
ISO 15686
Industrial metabolism
Life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions of
energy sources
Water footprint
Whole-life cost
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Further reading
1. Crawford, R.H. (2011) Life Cycle
Assessment in the Built Environment,
London: Taylor and Francis.
2. J. Guinée, ed:, Handbook on Life Cycle
Assessment: Operational Guide to the ISO
Standards, Kluwer Academic Publishers,
2002.
3. Baumann, H. och Tillman, A-M. The
hitchhiker's guide to LCA : an orientation in
life cycle assessment methodology and
application. 2004. ISBN 91-44-02364-2
4. Curran, Mary A. "Environmental Life-
Cycle Assessment", McGraw-Hill
Professional Publishing, 1996, ISBN 978-0-
07-015063-8
5. Ciambrone, D. F. (1997). Environmental
Life Cycle Analysis. Boca Raton, FL: CRC
Press. ISBN 1-56670-214-3.
6. Horne,Ralph., et al. "LCA: Principles,
Practice and Prospects". CSIRO
Publishing,Victoria, Australia, 2009.,
ISBN 0-643-09452-0
7. Vallero, Daniel A. and Brasier, Chris
(2008), "Sustainable Design: The Science
of Sustainability and Green Engineering",
John Wiley and Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ,
ISBN 0470130628. 350 pages.
8. Vigon, B. W. (1994). Life-Cycle
Assessment: Inventory Guidelines and
Principles. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
ISBN 1-56670-015-9.
9. Vogtländer,J.G., “A practical guide to
LCA for students, designers, and business
managers”, VSSD, 2010, ISBN 978-90-
6562-253-2.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Life-cycle assessment.
Embodied Energy: Life Cycle
Assessment. Your Home Technical
Manual. A joint initiative of the
Australian Government and the design
and construction industries. at the
Wayback Machine (archived 24 October
2007)
LCA research at the Center for
Environmental Sciences, Leiden
University
LCA Example: Light Emitting Diode
(LED) from GSA's Sustainable Facilities
Tool
A short interactive presentation of Life
Cycle Assessment
[1]
Retrieved from
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