Chemistry
Life Cycle Assessments
Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) are a method used to evaluate the environmental impacts of a product or process throughout its entire life cycle, from raw material extraction to disposal. It considers factors such as resource use, energy consumption, and emissions to assess the sustainability of a product or process. LCA helps identify opportunities for improvement and informs decision-making for more sustainable practices.
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12 Key excerpts on "Life Cycle Assessments"
eBook - PDFLife Cycle Engineering of Plastics
Technology, Economy and Environment
- L. Lundquist, Y. Leterrier, P. Sunderland, J.A.E. Månson(Authors)
- 2001(Publication Date)
- Elsevier Science(Publisher)
4 LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT Life Cycle Assessment is a tool permitting the study and evaluation of emissions and environmental impacts over the entire life cycle of a product or process. The aim is to relate the environmental load to the product functional unit to assess technological improvements for reduced resource use and environmental impacts on humans and on the ecosystem. The use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasing in all sectors of society. It is becoming a key component in the monitoring of environmental performance of products and processes as well as an element of product development and long-term strategic planning. Financial institutions are increasingly using environmental performance indicators as criteria for access to finance and insurance policies. This chapter presents a brief review of the concept of Life Cycle Assessment and its role as a decision-making tool for the plastics industry. The SETAC LCA-Code of Practice (1993) is followed with LCA divided into four parts, namely: goal definition and scoping, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and improvement analysis. The inventory analysis is reviewed according to the Centre of Environmental Science of the University of Leiden's guidelines on Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Products. Special attention is paid to issues specific to polymer, with reference to the inventory analysis methodology proposed by the Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe: feedstock energy issues, open- and closed loop recycling and reuse are treated. Guidelines to aid in the analysis of LCA results are given. 4.1 INTRODUCTION The evaluation of the environmental impact of a product or process requires a means of attributing resource use, waste and pollution. It is often far from easy to decide what is relevant to the product or process under consideration. It can even be difficult to define adequately what the product or process life cycle really is.
eBook - PDF- Rainer Roldan Fiscal(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Arcler Press(Publisher)
Life-Cycle Analysis CHAPTER 7 CONTENTS 7.1. Introduction .................................................................................... 178 7.2. Objective And Scope ...................................................................... 179 7.3. Life-Cycle Inventory ........................................................................ 180 7.4. LCI Methods ................................................................................... 182 7.5. Life-Cycle Impact Assessment ......................................................... 182 7.6. Life-Cycle Interpretation ................................................................. 183 7.7. LCA Uses ........................................................................................ 184 7.8. Data Analysis .................................................................................. 184 7.9. Variants Of Life-Cycle ..................................................................... 186 7.10. Green Chemistry-Based LCA ......................................................... 189 7.11. LCA Simulation ............................................................................. 198 References ............................................................................................. 200 Green Chemistry 178 7.1. INTRODUCTION Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a known technique used to assess the impacts environment can have on a product throughout its life starting from extraction of raw material through its processing, fabrication, distribution, utilization, maintenance, and as well as its dumping and recovering, which is why LCA is also known as eco-balance, cradle-to-grave analysis, or life-cycle analysis (Yadav & Mishra, 2013). This technique is used by designers to evaluate their products.
eBook - PDF- Christian N Madu(Author)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- ICP(Publisher)
The assessment 113 114 Environmental Planning and Management includes the entire life-cycle of the product, process or activity, encompassing extracting and processing raw materials; manufacturing, transportation, and distribution; use/reuse/maintenance; recycling; and final disposal.” ISO’s definition appears in the IS0 14040.2 Draft: Life Cycle Assessment - Principles and Guidelines and is defined as: “A systematic set of procedures for compiling and examining the inputs and outputs of materials and energy and the associated environmental impacts directly attributable to the functioning of a product or service throughout its life cycle.” This goal is accomplished by the following steps: Compiling an inventory of relevant inputs and outputs of a system; Evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with those inputs and outputs; Interpreting the results of the inventory and impact phases in relation to the objectives of the study. There are three major components of life cycle assessment. These are: inventory analysis, impact assessment and improvement assessment. LCA is a way of making the manufacturer to take responsibility for its products. It induces a design discipline that aims at achieving more value for less where the definition of value is expanded to include the potential impacts of the product or service on the environment. The designer focuses on design option that is environmentally sensitive by evaluating the product’s demand for limited resources, energy, and disposal requirements at every stage of the product’s life. Emphasis is on potential environmental burdens, energy consumption, and environmental releases. The manufacturer also takes a product stewardship approach in evaluating the product, process, or activity.
eBook - ePubGreen Composites
Polymer Composites and the Environment
- Caroline Baillie, Randika Jayasinghe(Authors)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Woodhead Publishing(Publisher)
3Life cycle assessment
R. Murphy Imperial College London, UK3.1 Introduction
Awareness that human activities can damage the Earth’s capacity to sustain life has been growing since the publication of Rachael Carson’s book Silent Spring in 1962 and the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth in 1972 (Meadows et al., 1972). More recently, the concepts of Sustainable Development (The World Commission on Sustainable Development, Brundtland, 1987 ) and Industrial Ecology (see Frosch and Gallopoulos, 1989 ) have emerged to help guide ways in which human society can be organised so that this capacity is preserved. Assessment of the environmental impact arising from activities such as construction, packaging or transport is an essential activity when attempting to design sustainable approaches to our development needs. A number of tools are now available for such assessments. Amongst these, life cycle assessment (LCA) has emerged over the last 10 to 15 years as a widely respected technique for evaluating the environmental aspects associated with a wide variety of products, processes or activities throughout their entire life cycles.3.1.1 Life cycle assessment
LCA is a systems analysis tool for evaluating environmental impacts over the whole life cycle of a product, process or activity from the ‘cradle’ (raw material acquisition) to the ‘grave’ (disposal or recycling) (UNEP, 1996 ; ISO, 1997 ). The emphasis in LCA is to generate transparent and complete assessments of environmental impact resulting from all stages of the life cycle of the product or activity in question and to use this to evaluate its environmental attributes in a holistic way. This approach has the potential to avoid mistakes or distortions engendered by ‘single issue’ or ‘single focus’ environmental assessments.LCAs are being used in fields as diverse as construction, energy systems, composite materials, packaging, agricultural production and green chemistry amongst others (Marteel et al.,
eBook - ePub- Evan S. Beach, Soumen Kundu, Evan S. Beach, Soumen Kundu, Paul T. Anastas(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Wiley-VCH(Publisher)
1 Application of Life Cycle Assessment to Green Chemistry ObjectivesThomas E. Swarr, Daniele Cespi, James Fava, and Philip Nuss1.1 Introduction
Green chemistry (GC) is described by the 12 principles of green chemistry to guide the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the generation and use of hazardous substances [1]. The guiding principles have been criticized for being qualitative and failing to provide an objective means to assess the overall “greenness” of proposed solutions or to evaluate trade-offs among conflicting principles, for example, reduced toxicity, but increased energy consumption [2]. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the “compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs, and the potential environmental impacts of a product system” and provides a quantitative method to address these concerns (3], p.2). It is an international standard recognized as an effective methodology to evaluate improvement strategies and avoid shifting problems to other times and places or among various environmental media [4,5].LCA, however, has its own set of limitations and unresolved methodology issues [6,7]. Some are particularly relevant to green chemistry, such as limited data for chemical production chains, lack of geographic specificity, and aggregation of emissions over time [8–10]. Increasingly, researchers are recognizing that the strengths and weaknesses of GC and LCA are complementary and are advocating for more effective integration of both methodologies to develop more sustainable solutions [2,11,12]. Anastas and Lankey (11], p.289) broaden the definition of green chemistry by considering chemistry to include “the structure and transformation of all matter” and hazardous impacts to address the “full range of threats to human health and the environment.” Application of LCA to GC problems promises a better understanding of the flow of toxics through the economy and provides a robust framework for organizing knowledge about inherent hazards associated with product systems [13].
eBook - PDFWhole Life-Cycle Costing
Risk and Risk Responses
- Abdelhalim Boussabaine, Richard Kirkham(Authors)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is an emerging environmental decision making tool that enables quantification of environmental burdens and their potential impacts over the whole life-cycle of building assets, products and construction processes in general. Although it has been used in some industrial sectors for more than 20 years, LCA has received little attention in the construction industry sector. Only since the late 1990s has its relevance started to emerge as an environmental tool to aid in the procurement of building assets. This chapter introduces the LCA methods and focuses on the application of LCA in design optimisation as a tool for developing sustainable building assets. 7.2 Life-cycle assessment Life-cycle assessment as defined by the standard ISO 14040 (Environmental Management – Life-Cycle Assessment – Principles and framework) is a tech-nique for assessing the environmental aspects and potential impacts associated with a product, by: • Goal defining and scooping of the system under study • Compiling a life-cycle inventory of relevant inputs and outputs of a product system • Evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with those inputs and outputs • Interpreting the results of the inventory analysis and impact assessment phases in relation to the objectives of the study. In the LCA context, system boundaries are drawn from cradle to grave to include all burdens and impacts in the life-cycle of a product or process, so that the inputs into the system are considered as primary resources. Figure 7.1 shows graphically the interaction among the LCA phases. 7.2.1 Goal and scope definition The first step in any analysis must be definition of the system under study. The goal of LCA studies is to quantify the environmental impacts of the building throughout its life in order to minimise them, specifically to quantify raw material use, energy use, emissions to air and water, and solid wastes into an inventory of results.
eBook - PDFProduct Design for the Environment
A Life Cycle Approach
- Fabio Giudice, Guido La Rosa, Antonino Risitano(Authors)
- 2006(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
83 Chapter 4 Life Cycle Assessment The identification of design alternatives that best satisfy environmental demands requires the use of instruments able to quantify the environmental performance of the product under development and guide the ameliorative measures. Moreover, only a systematic vision of the product over its life cycle can ensure that these measures reduce the environmental criticalities and so avoid simply transferring impacts from one phase of the life cycle to another. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an objective procedure used to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with a product’s entire life cycle, through the quantitative determination of all the exchange flows between the product– system and the ecosphere in all the transformation processes involved, from the extraction of raw materials to their return into the ecosphere in the form of waste. This chapter provides an overview of Life Cycle Assessment, tracing a general picture from its origins to the latest developments. Having described the premises, principal characteristics, and reference methodological struc-tures, it will be possible to specify its fields of application and limitations and to indicate the tools most commonly used in practice. 4.1 Environmental Analysis and Evaluation of the Life Cycle Environmental impact can be defined as “any change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from an organi-zation’s activities, products or services” (ISO 14001, 1996). One of the great-est difficulties in an attempt to reduce the negative impact that a generic activity has on the environment is that of evaluating this impact qualita-tively or quantitatively, so as to be then able to undertake appropriate initia-tives to contain it. Although the methodologies developed for the evaluation of environmental impact (Environmental Impact Assessment—EIA) are numerous (Jain et al., 1993) and differ in their identification, measurement
- Sven E. Jorgensen(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
9Life Cycle Assessment — Environmental Assessment of Products
Michael Hauschild Henrik Wenzel CONTENTS 9.1 What Is Life Cycle Assessment? 9.1.1 Introduction — The Life Cycle Perspective 9.1.2 The History of Life Cycle Assessment 9.1.3 The Interested Parties of LCA 9.1.4 International Coordination of LCA Method Development and Standardization 9.2 How to Perform an LCA 9.3 Goal Definition and Scoping 9.3.1 Goal Definition 9.3.2 Scope Definition 9.4 Inventory Analysis 9.4.1 Collection of Data 9.4.2 Quality of Data 9.4.3 Use of Computer Tools and Databases 9.5 Impact Assessment 9.5.1 Classification 9.5.2 Characterization 9.5.3 Normalization 9.5.4 Weighting 9.6 Interpretation 9.7 Reporting and Critical Review9.1 What Is Life Cycle Assessment?
Life cycle assessment is a methodology for assessing the environmental impacts and resource consumptions associated with the existence of products throughout the entire life cycle of the products — from cradle to grave. A central characteristic of life cycle assessment is thus the holistic focus on products (or the functions they fulfill) rather than on individual processes.9.1.1 Introduction — The Life Cycle Perspective
The last decade of the 20th century has seen the emergence of a strong interest in the environmental impacts associated with the products that surround us and by which we obtain the many services that our civilization relies on. This interest has been accompanied by the development of methods for environmental assessment of products. Other environmental assessment schemes, such as environmental risk assessment of chemicals (ERA, see Chapter 10
eBook - PDFSustainable Process Engineering
Concepts, Strategies, Evaluation and Implementation
- David Brennan(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Jenny Stanford Publishing(Publisher)
P ART C E VALUATION This page intentionally left blank This page intentionally left blank Chapter 10 Life Cycle Assessment 10.1 Introduction In this chapter we explore the methodology of life cycle assessment (LCA) for use in the environmental assessment of processes and products. LCA is a method which has been developed to provide a quantitative assessment of the environmental impact of a product over its entire life cycle . LCA accounts for both inputs and outputs, each derived from both process and utility sources: • inputs — consumptions of raw materials, energy, fuel and water • outputs — emissions to air, land and water. Figure 10.1 depicts the key stages of a product life cycle with inputs and outputs incurred at each stage. In some cases, there may also be consumptions and emissions at the product disposal stage. By-products are grouped with emissions as outputs, since by-products are distinct from the main product processing and use chain. Market demand for by-products dictates whether by-products can be usefully sold into other product chains, or alternatively require disposal. The disposal option may involve additional prior treatment. Sustainable Process Engineering: Concepts, Strategies, Evaluation, and Implementation David Brennan Copyright c 2013 Pan Stanford Publishing Pte. Ltd. ISBN 978-981-4316-78-1 (Hardcover), 978-981-4364-22-5 (eBook) www.panstanford.com 194 Life Cycle Assessment Figure 10.1 Inputs and outputs for an LCA study (Brennan, 2007) [Brennan Ch. 3 in Kutz ed. ‘Environmentally Conscious Materials and Chemicals Processing’ c 2007 John Wiley and Sons. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley and Sons, Inc.] 10.2 Product and Process Applications LCA has been most widely applied to products. One objective has been to establish which of several competing products has the least environmental impact for a given product function.
eBook - PDF- Olivier Jolliet, Myriam Saade-Sbeih, Shanna Shaked, Alexandre Jolliet, Pierre Crettaz(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
7 2 General Principles of Life Cycle Assessment Olivier Jolliet, Gabrielle Soucy, Shanna Shaked, Myriam Saadé-Sbeih, and Pierre Crettaz This chapter defines the life cycle assessment (LCA), its goals, and key phases. It explains the main characteristics of LCA and compares them with other environ-mental analysis tools. A real-life example illustrates the approach by presenting a comparison between different types of cups used in stadiums. At the end, two exer-cises encourage the reader to apply and practice the topics covered in the chapter. 2.1 DEFINITION OF THE FOUR LCA PHASES LCA evaluates the environmental impact of a product or service (sometimes referred to just as a product for brevity); the assessment is based on a particular function and considers all life cycle stages. It helps identify where environmental improvements can be made in a product’s life cycle and aids in the designing of new products. Primarily, this tool is used to compare various products, processes, or systems, as well as the different life cycle stages of a particular product. According to the definitions provided in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards and by the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), an LCA consists of a goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation of results (Figure 2.1). These four phases are defined as follows: 1. In the goal and scope definition (Chapter 3), the problem is described and the objectives and scope of the study are defined. A number of crucial elements are determined at this point: the function of the system, the functional unit on which the emissions and the extractions will be based, and the system bound-aries. The base scenario and the alternatives are described in detail. 2. In the inventory analysis (Chapter 4), the polluting emissions to air, water, and soil are quantified, as well as the extractions of renewable and nonre-newable raw materials.
eBook - PDFLife Cycle of Sustainable Packaging
From Design to End-of-Life
- Rafael A. Auras, Susan E. M. Selke(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
9 Life Cycle Assessment 214 9.9 Additional Resources 1 LCA youtube video several tutorials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wQ2Jm6i9F0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGhoInz-VUs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrJUpSiCOoU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYOC8_jJcII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFaG4QZpzIs 2 Consequential vs. attributional LCA https://lca-net.com/blog/consequential-vs-attributional-lca 3 The life cycle initiative – United Nations https://www.unenvironment.org/explore-topics/resource-efficiency/what-we-do/ life-cycle-initiative https://www.lifecycleinitiative.org/starting-life-cycle-thinking/life-cycle-approaches/ environmental-lca 4 US EPA Life cycle assessment: Principles and practice https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/P1000L86.TXT?ZyActionD=ZyDocument&Client=EPA&Ind ex=2006+Thru+2010&Docs=&Query=&Time=&EndTime=&SearchMethod=1&TocRestrict=n& Toc=&TocEntry=&QField=&QFieldYear=&QFieldMonth=&QFieldDay=&IntQFieldOp=0&ExtQ FieldOp=0&XmlQuery=&File=D%3A%5Czyfiles%5CIndex%20Data%5C06thru10%5CTxt%5C00000 002%5CP1000L86.txt&User=ANONYMOUS&Password=anonymous&SortMethod=h%7C-&Maxi mumDocuments=1&FuzzyDegree=0&ImageQuality=r75g8/r75g8/x150y150g16/i425&Display=hp fr&DefSeekPage=x&SearchBack=ZyActionL&Back=ZyActionS&BackDesc=Results%20page&Max imumPages=1&ZyEntry=1&SeekPage=x&ZyPURL 5 Tool for Reduction and Assessment of Chemicals and Other Environmental Impacts (TRACI) https://www.epa.gov/chemical-research/ tool-reduction-and-assessment-chemicals-and-other-environmental-impacts-traci 6 LCA – the basics – PRé Consultants https://www.pre-sustainability.com/sustainability-consulting/lca-methodology-basics 7 What is LCA? Thinkstep https://sphera.com/glossary/what-is-a-life-cycle-assessment-lca/ 8 LCA software Umberto® https://www.ifu.com/en/umberto/lca-software 9 PackageSmart https://www.earthshiftglobal.com/software/packagesmart 10 Compass® https://trayak.com/compass References 1 ISO (2006).
eBook - PDF- B Mattsson, U Sonesson(Authors)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- Woodhead Publishing(Publisher)
These aspects have been poorly addressed by LCA applications until now, and should be further developed in order to increase the credibility of LCA studies. Lindeijer et al . (2003) offer an interesting review on this issue. Water use Water is basic for agricultural development. In some parts of the world water is a very scarce resource because of arid or semi-arid conditions. If groundwater is Life cycle assessment of fruit production 49 used to overcome lack of rainfall, the rate of renewal of aquifers should be considered, which generally raises potential depletion problems. Thus, the optimisation of water use is very important. But even in regions not having this problem (i.e. with wide availability of water), water consumption by agriculture is relevant because it generally reduces its quality, increasing salinity and the concentrations of toxic substances. Therefore, not only water quantity, but also quality aspects should be considered from an LCA perspective. Toxicity of products and working environment As discussed in Sections 4.6.1 and 4.6.2, the effect of chemical substances on life is very important. Humans, animals and plants are exposed to many toxic substances which have a negative effect on their health. The effect of these substances should be consistently studied, in order to include it properly in the LCA. Also research into their exposure paths and site-dependent models to include the fate of toxic substances within the LCA is needed. Application of such models and data in LCA might help in giving advice to achieve more environmentally sound alternatives of management, such as listings of the most problematic substances, application procedures to reduce risk of intoxication, etc.
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