Life Cycle Analysis

Lecture 5 History, Concept, and Open LCA

Course design credit: Scott Matthews, Chris Hendrickson, Deanna Matthews @ Carnegie
Mellon University
Learning Objectives
1. State (a) the concept of a life cycle and (b) its various stages as
related to assessment of products.
2. Illustrate the complexity of life cycles for even simple products.
3. Explain why environmental problems, like physical products, (a) are
complex and (b) require broad thinking and boundaries that include
all stages of the life cycle.
4. Describe what kinds of outcomes we might expect if we fail to use
life cycle thinking.
Re-linking cost and environment
 This is a course on sustainability
 Different definitions, but in general it refers to economic, social, and
environmental issues being jointly considered
 Cost (economic) is only one part. We need to understand the others also.
 LCA is the kind of tool to help do this.
 Goal: life cycle THINKING.
Why LCA?
 In “meeting needs of present without compromising our ability to meet
future needs”, we are faced with some obstacles
 Corporate and social pressures
 Governmental/regulatory barriers

 Uncertain objectives/goals

 Lack of tools to measure our progress

 Sometimes our intuition is not a sufficient framework for analysis!

 LCA = systematic method for comparing products and policies
Definitions
 A life cycle of a product (a.k.a. “cradle to grave”) begins with raw
materials production and extends to manufacture, use, transport, and
waste management
Our Expanded Focus
 We leverage the well-known concept of the life cycle to technical
systems
 We use the holistic scope to convey the system boundary
 We apply it to consider stages where flows like energy, emissions, etc.,
would occur.
 Life cycle thinking is the conceptualization (without actually quantifying
anything)
Conceptualizing a Product Life Cycle
 Choose a simple product (not a paper clip)
 Example on board (silver ring)
 Work backwards from the final product through the immediate
process, then further back through those processes.
 If we care about particular flows, where would they likely occur in our
example?
 Refer to these as hot spots
 Decisions with Narrow Perspectives
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 In early 1990s, California had a policy goal of reducing emissions of air

pollution by encouraging the adoption of ‘zero emission vehicles (ZEVs)’
into 2% of the fleet by year 1998 (10% in 2003).
 These vehicles were battery-powered (Pb acid)
 These vehicles had no tailpipes

 A study in Science by Lave et al (1995) suggested this policy would not

achieve its intended goals
 What were the problems?
 Example - Answers
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 Cars fully powered by batteries

 Batteries of this type need to be recharged
 Recharging happens with electricity
 Electricity production has air emissions!
 Also - at the time, batteries were lead-acid
 Heavy batteries for battery-only power
 Large amounts of lead needed (with significant manufacture/recycling emissions of lead)
 More lead released than without ZEVs!
 An LCA could have pointed this out but was not performed originally.
History of LCA
 Note: Life Cycle Cost Analysis is a subset
 Cost focused: big factor in infrastructure management
 Initial LCA work was focused on energy
 1969 - first multi-criteria study for Coca-Cola
 Choice between glass and plastic for container
 Choice between internal / external container production
 End of life options (recycling or one-way)
 Result: plastic bottle was best, contrary to expectations.
 Study was never published
 Questions of validity then occurred (a running theme!)
 Led to calls by scientific community for a standardization process
What is LCA?
 LCA is a way of structuring/organizing the relevant parts of the life
cycle
 It is a tool to track performance and perhaps to improve product
design
 LCA is not a cure-all for our environmental problems
 LCA is not an “exact” science with provable axioms/theories
 LCA is part of the sustainability toolbox
And … there are careers in LCA
 Companies and government
agencies
 Assess products, processes,
policies
 Some consulting firms specialize
in LCA services
 Peer review
 Standards dictate a peer review
for any publicly released study
with comparative assertions
 Growing business area
The ISO LCA Standard
History of ISO LCA Standard
 Part of ISO 14000 Env. Mgmt.Standards
 Like ISO 9000 Quality Standards
 First draft of LCA standard – 1997
 Prior: separate standards for each piece of LCA framework – now unified
 Revised 2006 as ISO 14040 and ISO 14044
 14040 – basic overview (something a manager might see)
 14044 – requirements and guidelines (what a practitioner needs to know)
Uses and Needs for LCA Standard

 Improve performance of products / services

 Inform decisions by stakeholders

 Selection of relevant indicators (e.g., energy use)

 Supporting marketing / claims

Phases of an LCA*

 Goal and Scope definition

 Inventory

 Impact Assessment
 Environmental, Economic, and Social
 Interpretation

The A is underlined in LCA because many “LCA” studies exclude impact assessment.
These are called “LCI studies” and otherwise conform to the ISO standard.
LCA is intended to be
 Focused on environmental aspects
 Relative
 Iterative
 Transparent
 Comprehensive
 Based on science
Intended underlined because some harder than others to do fully
Goal and Scope Definition
 Goal and Scope –
 Seriesof parameters to be qualitatively and quantitatively described for an
LCA study, which we refer to as the study design parameters (SDPs)
 Collection of high-level aspects for a study.
 Isa subset of required elements that one could look at quickly and get an
idea of what the study is doing (and not doing)
 Are the critical items that need to be set to later report on when LCA is
done.
Study Design Parameters (SDP)
Study Design Parameter - Goal
 “Goal should unambiguously state:”
(1) the intended application,
(2) the reasons for carrying out the study,
(3) the audience, and
(4) whether the results will be used in comparative assertions released
publicly.

a.k.a: "who might care about this and why?" and "why we did it and
what will we do with it?”
Xmas Tree LCA
 "The findings of the study are intended to be used as a basis for
educated external communication and marketing aimed at the American
Christmas tree consumer."
 "The goal of this LCA is to understand the environmental impacts of both
the most common artificial Christmas tree and the most common natural
Christmas tree, and to analyze how their environmental impacts
compare."
 "This comparative study is expected to be released to the public by the
ACTA to refute myths and misconceptions about the relative difference in
environmental impact by real and artificial trees.”
Product System

 Collections of unit processes, elementary flows, and product flows

 Processes, flows maybe in / out of bounds

 Depending on your scope..
 In: fuel, energy, materials, …

 Out: emissions, waste, …

Definitions
 Elementary flows - material or energy entering or leaving the system,
directly to/from the environment, without human transformation

 Unit process - smallest portion of a product being studied for which LCI
data available

 Inputs / Outputs - materials or energy entering or leaving a unit process

Unit Process

Product flow Product flow

Elementary flow Unit Process Elementary flow

Product system
 Detail of Process Connections Inside the Product
System

Product flow Product flow Product flow

Elementary flow (Unit) Process Elementary flow (Unit) Process

Elementary flow

Source: ISO
System Boundaries
 What processes are In, and Out for the study?
 Also, initially arbitrary – but likely changes as study proceeds (bigger,
smaller)

 “The deletion of life cycle stages, processes, inputs or outputs is only

permitted if it does not significantly change the overall conclusions of the
study. “
 You obviously need to know what the results would be if you included everything to
show it wouldn’t change conclusions!?
 Could probably do a “hazardous waste LCA” for an automobile and exclude use
phase! Surprising.
Boundaries (cont.)
 “Any decisions to omit life cycle stages, processes, inputs or outputs shall be
clearly stated, and the reasons and implications for their omission shall be
explained.”
 You can omit things if you explain why
Function and Functional Unit
 What is the function of the system studied (what does it do)?
 Example: provides Christmas Joy (for Xmas tree example)
 Functional unit “quantifies the function”
 May be arbitrary
 Is the quantitative basis for which your inputs and outputs relate
 Explicit unit for comparisons within study and for future studies
 Ex: displaying one unlit, undecorated Christmas tree with tree stand in the home during
one holiday season
 Ex: providing 1000 lumens of light via a fixture
 Ex: drying 1 pair of hands
Functional Unit Bridges Function to the
Necessary LCI results
Table below attempts to show this..
When Functional Units Go Wrong
 Getting the functional unit wrong causes lots of wasted effort.
Common issues below.
 Not including units (too much like a function)
 Error: “functional unit is generating electricity”
 Not including quantity (error: “kWhs of electricity”)
 Confusing with inventory (error: CO2 per kWh)
Functional Units for Comparisons
 Especially important!
 If functional unit isn’t related to a generic function, might be impossible
to compare.
 Example: different fuels. Can’t have functional unit be “driving a car
1 mile on gasoline” and then compare gasoline versus ethanol.
 Fix: generalized (abridged) functional units:
 “driving a car 1 mile”
 “using 1 gallon-equivalent (MJ basis) in a car”

 “using 1 MJ of energy in a car”