Scribd
Upload
8 views

Lecture 3&4-Life Cycle Assessment

Uploaded by

lj200229
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
8 views

Lecture 3&4-Life Cycle Assessment

Uploaded by

lj200229
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 29

LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

LECTURE 3 &4
 Definition
 Aim of LCA
 Structure of LCA
 Application of LCA
 Difficulties with LCA
What is LCA?
 Life cycle assessment (LCA), is a method of
evaluating the environmental consequences of
a product or process “from cradle to grave.”
 The Society for Environmental Toxicology &
Chemistry(SETAC) defines LCA as “a process
used to evaluate the environmental burdens
associated with a product, process, or activity.”
 The U.S. EPA has stated that an LCA “is a tool to
evaluate the environmental consequences of a
product or activity holistically, across its entire
life.”
 LCA aim at improving environmental quality
through reduction of total loss in terms of both
materials and energy in doing so minimizing
wastes and emissions
Stages of LCA :
 Aim setting
 Making an inventory
 Impact assessment
 Evaluation
 Assessment of improving measure
The aim setting is the first stage of LCA and its
main steps are:
 Determine the use of the study
 Determine the subject of the study
 Determine the scope of the study
 Decision are made which together determine the
subject of the assessment and the procedure to
follow.

 Decision has to be taken what the ultimate aim


of the study, which target group are involved and
who can be considered to be the initiator of the
study.
This stage tells the rationale of the study which is one or
several of the following LCA’s objectives; is to:-

 Establish baseline information on use of resources and


energy, and environmental loading

 Identify stages in the LC of a product where reduction


of environmental loading is possible

 Compare the system input and outputs associated with


alternative products, processes or activities

 Guide development of new products, processes or


activities w.r.t reduction of environmental loading

 Identify areas to be addressed during LC- impact


Subject of the study can be defined
by answers of these questions:-

• What is the product to be studied?


• What is the product group?
• What is the product-spatial representativeness?
• What is the product-future representativeness?
• What is the functional unit?
Factors that determining the scope of
LCA study include:

 Level of specificity
 Intend use of information
 Availability time and resources
 Accessibility to product data/information
• It is a core stage of LCA and consume more
time and resources

• Stage where interactions of product LC and the


environment are studied

• Identifies and quantifies energy and resource


used and environmental releases to air, water
and land

• Starts with raw material acquisition, industrial


processing, consumer use and finally
disposition
Inventory stage can be divide into:-
 Formulation of the process flowcharts (i.e.
Processes and sub processes)
 Identification of the system boundaries (i.e.
product system and environment, product system
and other interrelated product system, relevant
process and irrelevant process)
 Data collection (i.e. quantification of input and
output)
 Data analysis (i.e. calculation of environmental
impacts, environmental impacts allocation to
products)
Grain
production

Cattle
Raising
Salt Meet packing Forestry
mining tallow rendering
Caustic Soap Paper
manufactur manufacturing production
e

Soap
packaging

Consumer

Post consumer
waste management
IA is a tool for relating the outcome of an inventory
analysis to environmental themes e.g.

 Biotic species depletion


 Global warming
 Acidification
 Human health problems
 Ozone layer depletion
 Toxicity
 Workout for impact score of your product
Normalization of the score by:
 Relating them with references (secondary data)
 Relating them with recent research data
(primary data)
 Using qualitative information gathered during
LCA
 Available standards
 Preparation of environmental profile consisting
a fixed set of scores on environmental themes
in absolute figures.
 Weigh out the environmental profile based on
local, regional and global levels

 Determine weighing factors (criteria based on


community views, political views, economic
aspects, global issues etc.)

 Weigh factors differ from country to country, or


even within one country due to differences in
local conditions and other criteria stipulated
above.
 In the weighing of environmental profiles, every
environmental theme gets a weight, representing
the relative importance of the theme.

 Several methods are available for weighing


environmental themes:
i. Environmental Priority Strategy (EPS)-system
 Evaluate both effect and the consequences of the
effect
ii. Ecopoints
 Evaluate effect based on environmental impact
target predetermined in national env. Policy
objectives

ii. Distance to target methods


 Similar to the Ecopoints methods, but does not
depend on national policy target. The basis for
the target values are scientific data.
 For every environmental theme involved calculate
(impact scores of environmental theme) (allocated
weight)

 Compute the dimensionless environmental Index=Sum


(impact scores of environmental theme), (allocated
weight)

 Compare the obtained environmental index with


available range

 Subject your conclusions to sensitivity analysis


 Sensitivity analysis is the analysis used to identifies the
consequences of uncertainties and deviations in the
data

 A technique used to determine how different values of


an independent variable will impact a particular
dependent variable under a given set of assumptions.

 Sensitivity analysis is a way to predict the outcome of a


decision if a situation turns out to be different
compared to the key prediction(s).
 It is a stage to intergrate the LCA findings in the
decision making process

 Use LCA as a decision support tool

 Working out for the suggested improvement


options

 Prioritize them according to the available


resources (i.e. finance, human and time)
 Life cycle assessments can be used both
internally (within an organization) and
externally (by the public and private sectors).

 Internally, LCAs can be used to establish a


comprehensive baseline (i.e., requirements)
that product design teams should meet,
identify the major impacts of a product’s life
cycle, and guide the improvement of new
product systems toward a net reduction of
resource requirements and emissions in the
industrial system as a whole.
 Externally,
 LCAs can be used to compare the environmental
profiles of alternative products, processes,
materials, or activities and to support marketing
claims.

 LCA can also support public policy and eco-


labeling programs
 The amount of data and the staff time required
by LCAs can make them very expensive, and it
isn’t always easy to obtain all of the necessary
data.

 It is hard to properly define system boundaries


and appropriately allocate inputs and outputs
between product systems and stages.

 It is often very difficult to assess the data


collected because of the complexity of certain
environmental impacts.
• Lack of fundamental understanding and
knowledge about the actual cause of certain
environmental problems and the degree of threat
that they pose to ecological and human health.
Goal Definition and Scoping
 Costs to conduct an LCA may be prohibitive to small firms.
 Time required to conduct LCA may exceed product
development constraints, especially for short development
cycles.
 Temporal and spatial dimensions of a dynamic product
system are difficult to address.
 Definition of functional units for comparison of design
alternatives can be problematic.
 Allocation methods used in defining system boundaries have
inherent weaknesses.
 Complex products (e.g., automobiles) require tremendous
resources to analyze.
Data Collection
• Data availability and access can be limiting
(e.g., proprietary data).
• Data quality concerns such as bias, accuracy,
precision, and completeness are often not well-
addressed.

Data Evaluation
• Sophisticated models and model parameters for
evaluating resource depletion and human and
ecosystem health may not be available, or their
ability to represent the product system may be
grossly inaccurate.
Information Transfer
 Design decision makers often lack knowledge

about environmental effects. Aggregation and


simplification techniques may distort results.
Synthesis of environmental effect categories is
limited because they are incommensurable.

You might also like