THE HITCH HIKER’S GUIDE TO LCA

THE HITCH HIKER’S GUIDE TO LCA
HENRIKKE BAUMANN
ANNE-MARIE TILLMAN

1 LCA IN A NUTSHELL
In LCA, a product is followed from its cradle to its grave. Natural resource use and pollutant emission are described in quantative terms. The procedure for how LCA studies are done and interpreted is:
• Goal and scope definition
• Inventory analysis
• Impact assessment

There are a series of standards for LCA, ISO 14040-14043.

2 DEVELOPMENT OF THE LCA CONCEPT
Before LCA was known as LCA, it was known under many names, for example:
• Ecobalances
• Resource and environmental profile analysis (REPA)
• Integral environmental analysis
• Environmental profiles
In 1991, it was decided to name the concept Life Cycle Assessment. In 1997, ISO 14040 was issued.

3 GOAL AND SCOPE DEFINITION
The goal and scope definition is a crucial phase of LCA studies, since different purposes require different methodology. The goal and scope definition is a play between at least two actors, the commissioner and the practitioner. Important aspects when deciding on scope are:
• Which options to model?
• Functional unit
• Choice of impact categories and method of impact assessment
• Type of LCA (accounting or change-oriented)
• System boundaries
• Cut-off criteria
4 INVENTORY ANALYSIS
Activities of the life cycle inventory analysis (LCI) include:
1. Construction of the flowchart according to the system boundaries decided on in the goal and scope definition.
2. Data collection for all the activities in the product system followed by documentation of collected data
3. Calculation of the environmental loads of the system in relation to the functional unit.
Allocation is a big issue in LCA, and one that is still being discussed and researched upon. The first thing to do when dealing with allocation is to choose between increasing the level of detail, or to expand the system.

One of the most debated issues with LCA is how to deal with allocation in open loop recycling.

5 LIFE CYCLE IMPACT ASSESSMENT
The impact assessment is achieved by “translating” the environmental loads from the inventory results into environmental impacts, such as acidification, ozone depletion, effect on biodiversity etc.

The general categories of environmental impacts are resource use, human health and ecological consequences. The complex web of cause-effect chains of environmental impacts causes problems with these categories though.

The phase of LCIA include:
• Impact category definition
• Classification
• Characterisation
• Normalisation
• Grouping
• Weighting
• Data quality analysis

There are a number of ready-made LCIA methods, for example:
• Ecoindicator’99
• EPS
• Environmental themes
• EDIP

6 INTERPRETATION AND PRESENTATION OF RESULTS
The process of assessing results in order to draw conclusions is called interpretation. The use of different types of diagrams is very helpful in this process.

The following tests can be uses to test the robustness for the study:
• Completeness check
• Conistency check
• Uncertainty check
• Sensitivity analysis
• Variation analysis
• Data quality analysis

7 CRITICAL REVIEW OF LCA
In the early 1990s, there was a suspicion that LCAs sometimes just showed what the commissioner of the study wanted it to show. Credibility is thus one of the reasons for critical review.

There are today two main types of reviews, the full ISO review and the review of EPDs.
8 LCA DATA MANAGEMENT
There are at least 24 available software packages on the market. There is a ISO standard for the LCA documentation format, ISO/TS 14048. The packages can be divided into three categories:
• Screening LCA (simple LCA for product development for example)
• Accounting LCA
• Fullblown LCA
9 LCA AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Two challenges characteristic of product development are time pressure and trade-offs between competing issues.

Environmental considerations should start influencing the product development process as early as possible, otherwise only small changes to the product design is possible.

Several simplified LCA methods exist, for example the MET matrix. LC-DSM matrix

There are specialized software packages that allow for “quick-and-dirty” LCAs.

Sometimes, “ordinary” LCA is necessary.

LCA-derived rules-of-thumb and proxies can be efficient in the product development process. For example, the LCA experience that a cars biggest environmental impact is its use gives the rule of thumb that weight is an important factor to work with.

10 GREEN MARKETING AND LCA
If green marketing is “too successful”, it could lead to an increase in total consumption volumes.

The connections between green marketing and LCA are:

• A company can communicate that it performs LCAs, to increase its overall environmental credibility.
• LCAs can be used to set the criteria for eco-labelling.
• LCAs, together with other environmental information, is used in Environmental Products Declarations, EPDs. EPDs are mainly uses in b2b situations.

11 LCA FOR PRODUCTION PROCESSES
Environmental concerns often conflict with other concerns in the production process, e.g. cost and performance. Thus, it can be useful to use optimisation methods to find the best solution. There are software packages available for this.

LCAs are often used to find the hot spots of the production processes.

Manufacturers of complex products such as cars and electronics have relatively little direct control of the emissions from production. Similarly to LCA, the supply chain concept grew out of the recognition that improvement of the individual supply chain stages did not lead to improvement of the chain as a hole.

There is little experience of making environmental assessments of supply chains.

Purchasers are in a strategic position to reduce environmental impact. Purchasers are often unclear about what they should base their environmental purchasing decision on.

Transportation has a small portion of the environmental impact of a product, with exceptions for for example clothes and bananas.
12 LCA AND WASTE MANAGEMENT
There are two ways waste management may be studied in LCA. In one approach the waste management system is the foreground system. Studies of this type are used to support planning of waste management. Waste management may also be a background system in LCAs that are focused on some other issue. For those types of study, generic data are needed.

Open loop recycling problems are handled with system expansion for the first type of study.

13 ORGANISING LCA ACTIVITIES IN A COMPANY
This chapter presents four cases of LCA use in industry.

Although the LCA concept is spreading, LCA work has not yet become routine procedure in industry. Companies tend to experiment, testing LCA on new products and new fields of application. This means that LCA projects often lead to learning and even surprising insights, perhaps also disappointment. In many companies, one may find an LCA entrepreneur, i.e. someone who actively and enthusiastically promotes LCA, and who is important for the process of implementing LCA.