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An Introduction to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Article · November 2011

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 environmental engineering and management environmental engineering and management

An introduction to Life
Cycle Assessment (LCA)
by Kevin Harding, School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Abstract What is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)?

Life Cycle Assessment, LCA and ‘cradle-to-grave’ are Life Cycle Assessment is a method to assess the full
oft quoted terms. But how much is known about the environmental impacts of a system. It is a quantitative
methods behind these words? This article lays out the tool which aims to avoid emotive attitudes such as “fossil
basics behind LCA studies and explains what it is, who fuels are bad” or “organic is better”. Instead it is a pro-
would use it and how to perform such a study. cess of evaluating the effects that a system has on the

T
environment; including extraction, processing, manufac-
here is a general trend in the world today; from Fast ture, transport, distribution, use, reuse, maintenance, Figure 1: An LCA includes cradle to grave impacts; thus the use, recycling and disposal is included, not only the inputs and outputs of the
Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industries, to tra- recycling and final disposal. As such, an LCA is said to production of a product
ditional environmentalists, to the person next door; include the ‘cradle-to-grave’ impacts of the system in
to promote and take up products, processes and services question, but may also be defined as ‘cradle-to-gate’ or products may be preferred. Where consumers lack trust- Goal and Scope
that are environmentally friendly. But what does this ‘gate-to-gate’ (Figure 1). worthy and comparable environmental information, LCAs
The Goal and Scope defines what it is that is to be
mean when there are so many types of certified eco-la- can provide this information.
LCA can focus on a product, process or a service. It investigated. Are the goals of the study to perform a
bels? These range from the original German Blue Angel,
can also be broken into/reported as individual portions, strength and weakness analysis, product compari-
to Energy Star, the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC)
eg, transport, packaging, manufacture, etc. Further, it How to perform a Life Cycle Assessment son, product improvement or eco-labelling? Further, a
to various other certifications (Bratt et al, 2011). Many
takes into account the broader geographic location (such Framework functional unit is defined. This is the product/process/
of these throw the words ‘sustainable’, ‘environmentally
as continent, country or smaller, depending on available According to the ISO standards governing Life Cycle As- service which is to be investigated and is related to
friendly’ or ‘organic’ around as if they are a fix-all to any
data) while avoiding social or political arguments. Since sessment (ISO 14040 and ISO 14044), an LCA is made the type of study, eg, the production of 1 ton of paper,
environmental problems.
LCA is quantitative, the results should be reproducible, up of four stages: Goal and Scope, Inventory Analysis, driving 1 km in a small passenger car, etc. The func-
While many have genuine claims at being ‘better’ for thereby enhancing credibility. tional unit may depend on the level of detail required
Impact Assessment and Interpretation (Figure 2). Flow
the environment, should we not at least understand the in the study. When looking at an entire life cycle of
LCA is data-intensive. Obtaining this data may be from one stage to the next is not always to be seen as
claims being made? Just because something is natural/ a large process, multiple products may result. If the
difficult due to the quantity of data needed, the diffi- linear, but it is possible to return to a previous stage
organic/biological, does it mean it’s better for us or the primary product of interest (and the functional unit) is
culty in measurement of the data and the sensitivity of once findings and interpretation of each have been per-
environment? One of the more popular quantitative tools unclear, allocation, or division of multiple products may
certain data (particularly if the data is not from one’s own formed. This forms part of the iterative nature of LCA.
for environmental comparison is Life Cycle Assessment be needed. This may be done by mass, economic or
company). Due to the high data volumes, manipulation
(LCA). In this article, the basic concepts of LCA are pre- another basis.
is often done using specialized software packages. This
sented in order to understand it more clearly.
allows for easier data manipulation, faster calculation Life Cycle Assessment Framework
and standardization (which also allows for data transfer Inventory Analysis
across databases). The second step of an LCA, the Inventory Analysis, can
In order to standardize studies, LCAs are performed Goal and be seen in engineering terms as a mass and energy
according to the framework defined by ISO (ISO 14040: Scope balance. Inputs and outputs, including the economic
2006, ISO14044: 2006) allowing for common under- Definition (services and goods) as well as environmental (resourc-
standing amongst practitioners. es and emissions) values, are needed.
This requires that the full flowsheet, including all pro-
Who uses LCA? cesses required in manufacture, use and final disposal
Depending on the user (industry, government or NGOs), are known. The entire life cycle implies that the flowsheet
LCA studies may have different practical applications: starts with raw materials and ends with final use or dis-
• Industry may use LCA to understand the full Life Cycle Inventory posal and includes all emissions (air, water, solid) along
Interpretation
of their products, processes or services or to under- Analysis the chain. Data can be collected from literature, LCA
stand their contribution to the total impact of their databases, industry data, government records or physical
business in the full Life Cycle (‘Chain of responsibility’). measurement. This is often the most difficult and time-
consuming step.
• Government may be interested in things such as eco-
labelling, deposit-refund schemes (eg, the impacts of Once the processes are defined, the system boundar-
a glass recycling scheme vs. no scheme at all), subsi- ies (which are not always obvious) can be more carefully
dies, taxation or general policy decision-making. defined. Subtle changes to the boundary can have a
Impact
big influence on final LCA scores. Data that is directly
• NGOs may use LCA in order to supply consumers with Assessment
calculated or measured for the specific study are known
information, support public decisions or influence
as foreground processes, while data collected from sec-
enterprises and governments.
ondary sources (databases) are known as background
For all three instances, the buying power of consumers processes (Figure 3).
will influence market trends; and environmentally-friendlier Figure 2: Phases of an LCA (modified from ISO 14040: 2006)

22 Chemical Technology •November 2011 Chemical Technology • November 2011 23

 environmental engineering and management environmental engineering and management

representative values. The thousands of numbers are A further way to make sense of these numbers is
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converted to a meaningful representation of the pro- when many LCAs have been performed and a comparison
cess/product/service relative to the functional unit. This can be made with these studies. This is termed Normal-
involves three steps: Classification; Characterization/ ization. Normalization involves comparing the size of your
Normalization and Valuation. contribution vs. the total contribution to the problem over
one year. For example, a process emitting 1 tonne of pol-
Classification lutant and the global number is 1 million tonnes per year,
Each of the thousands of inventory table data points the normalized value for your process is one millionth of
are classified according to an environmental problem. a year (or 10-6 years; 32 seconds).
These could include such environmental issues as
Resource Depletion, Energy Depletion, Global Warming, Valuation
Photochemical Oxidation, Acidification, Toxicity, Ozone A final step in the quantification procedure in an LCA is
Depletion, Eutrophication and more. It is possible that the valuation step. This is the conversion of characteriza-
a material from the inventory table contributes to more tion scores to a single value. Each characterization value
than one category. is given a weighting and all values added to give single
There are various organizations which promote their score. While valuation and single scores are still used,
own set of classification categories, including CML, Eco- they are not recommended in terms of the ISO regula-
indicator, EPS, TRACI (US EPA), BEES and EPD. Each also tions (Figure 4).
has their own weighting factors for characterization as
explained below. Interpretation How is quality assured?
Figure 3: Schematic diagram showing the foreground process (grey Quality is assured by using properly defined methodolo-
block) and background processes (everything else) as per an LCA LCA is designed to be questioned at each stage of the
process. This is the role of the interpretation phase. It gies, verified datasets and good quality foreground data.
flowsheet, as well as how flows may be interconnected. Characterization/Normalization
is particularly easy in the previous steps to have num- Further, following the standards as set out by ISO (ISO
Once all the materials from the inventory table have
The final step in the inventory analysis is to construct bers without much knowledge of what they really mean. 14040; ISO 14044) ensure robust results.
been classified into a category, each is given a weighting
an inventory table. This involves converting all the mate- factor depending on their relative impact to the category Due to the nature of LCA specifying an iterative nature, These standards also require each LCA to have
rial and energy balance numbers (and there are typically in question. Weighting factors are given in terms of some improving parts which are seen as problematic during the an independent peer review. Performing a sensitivity
thousands) across the flowsheet into values relative to other chemical, eg, global warming is given in terms of interpretation phase (after each other stage), strength- analysis gives another level of confidence to the quality
the functional unit. These numbers are almost all mass CO2 equivalents; 1 kg of CH4 equals 25 kg CO2 eq (IPCC ens the confidence of the LCA results. of the study.
values (energy numbers would have become mass values GWP100a method). Weighting factors multiplied by the
since, for example, a kilowatt of energy would require amount of material give the contribution to final LCA
a certain mass of coal or other fuel). Some things may
Final words Drawbacks of LCA
scores. Summing all the contributions from each material Despite the positives of LCA, there are some things that
not be picked up in numbers alone, eg, soil erosion, What expertise is required?
in a category gives a final LCA score for that category. users need to be aware of in these assessments. LCAs
noise, rainfall/evaporation or the exact site location, eg, Typically, LCAs are carried out by dedicated departments
Values from characterization are often meaningless in large companies, specialized consultancies and uni- can take a long time to perform; mainly due to the large
Sandton vs. Sasolburg and this needs to be remembered
in isolation. They are more meaningful either when versities. Specialized software (SimaPro, GaBi, OpenLCA volume of numbers involved and the time to obtain
when analysing and reporting results.
used as a comparison to a similar product/process (or etc) is required both for the arithmetic needed with the these if flowsheets and material and energy balance
during an improvement assessment), or when the as- large volume of numbers involved, and to manipulate the data is not available.
Impact Assessment sessment is broken down to show the contributions for available databases of background processes. Further, With ever changing processes, a valid LCA today
The next step is to convert the material numbers from individual parts of a whole, eg, transport, manufacture, may not be valid tomorrow; a valid LCA in one area may
recycle loops within a process (Figure 5) can further com-
the inventory analysis into a manageable number of use, disposal. be meaningless in another. As such, with fast moving
plicate systems, so expert use is recommended.
technological advances, comparative LCAs can quickly
become outdated.

References and further reading

1. Bratt, C., Hallstedt, S., Robèrt, K.-H., Broman, G.,
Oldmark, J, 2011. Assessment of eco-labelling criteria
development from a strategic sustainability perspec-
tive, J. Clean. Prod., 19(14), 1631-1638.
2. Curran, M.A., 1996. Environmental Life-Cycle
Assessment, McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing.
3. ISO 14040: 2006. Environmental management –
Life Cycle Assessment – Principles and Framework,
International Organization for Standardization.
4. ISO 14044: 2006. Environmental management –
Life Cycle Assessment – Requirements and Guide-
lines, International Organization for Standardization.
5. UNEP, 1996. Life Cycle Assessment: What it is and How
to do it, United Nations Environmental Program, Indus-
try and Environment, United Nations Publications, Paris.
Figure 4: Representative steps of the LCA from obtaining an Inventory Table, through Classification, Characterization and Valuation Figure 5: Recycle loops within an LCA flowsheet

24 Chemical Technology •November 2011 Chemical Technology • November 2011 25