Technology & Engineering
LCSA
LCSA, or Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment, is a method used to evaluate the environmental, social, and economic impacts of a product or process throughout its entire life cycle. It considers factors such as resource use, emissions, and social implications to provide a comprehensive understanding of the sustainability performance of a technology or engineering project.
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12 Key excerpts on "LCSA"
- Gerardo Ruiz Mercado, Heriberto Cabezas(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Butterworth-Heinemann(Publisher)
In order to move successfully toward sustainable industrial development, we need to know how we can measure our progress using environmental, social, and economic indicators over time. As a result, a range of methodologies and tools has been developed for assessing environmental indicators for sustainability achievement across products and technologies. Among these methodologies and tools, life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) is introduced here to broaden the tool of environmental life cycle assessment (E-LCA) by accounting economic and social sustainability [3]. This chapter will start with a discussion on methodologies for assessing life cycle sustainability and the need of LCSA. It is then followed by a case study that assesses rice husk-based bioelectricity in Vietnam over its life cycle to verify the practical application of LCSA methodology. Methodologies for Assessing Life Cycle Sustainability Life cycle assessment (LCA) is defined in Horne [4] as the “compilation and evaluation of inputs and outputs and the potential impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle.” In E-LCA, all input materials, waste, and emissions are accounted for at all stages: raw material extraction and processing; product and/or service manufacturing; use and disposal; and finally transportation. The comprehensive data requirement of LCA makes it a particularly effective mechanism for systematic assessment of environmental impacts when designing chemical engineering processes to produce chemicals, fuels, and other product systems [4]. The seminal definition of sustainable development was introduced as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [1]
eBook - ePubLife Cycle Sustainability Assessment for Decision-Making
Methodologies and Case Studies
- Jingzheng Ren, Sara Toniolo(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Elsevier(Publisher)
Zamagni et al., 2013 : 1637), which may actually represent a double edged weapon for the diffusion of LCSA at the decision-making level.On the other hand, in order to promote a wider application of the LCSA framework and, consequently, a broader diffusion of sustainability-related considerations in the design of products and processes, a set of simplified tools would certainly be required. A set of tools possibly fitting with this call could include indicators and scenario analysis. As highlighted by Bell and Morse (2018) , the use of indicators and indices, which is typically aimed at simplifying systems and conveying complex information to the public, could be curbed to this scope, but it would require a detailed analysis of the specificity of sectors and applications of LCSA and it would probably not respond to “one size fits for all.” The same approach could be applied through scenario analysis, where processes are simplified and alternative solutions characterized at a level useful to improve the understanding of the decision-makers and speed-up the adaptation of the proposal to the development, for example, of a project, and yet complex enough as to model the process itself adequately, without losing the reliability of results proposed (Spangenberg, 2018
eBook - ePubSustainability Assessment of Renewables-Based Products
Methods and Case Studies
- Jo Dewulf, Steven De Meester, Rodrigo A. F. Alvarenga, Jo Dewulf, Steven De Meester, Rodrigo A. F. Alvarenga(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
13 Life Cycle Assessment and Sustainability : Supporting Decision Making by Business and PolicySala Serenella, Fabrice Mathieux, and Rana PantEuropean Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Sustainability Assessment Unit, Italy13.1 Life Cycle Assessment: A Systemic Approach to Evaluate Impacts
Sustainability of production and consumption system is increasingly facing multifaceted and interrelated challenges. Markets are global, supply chains are very complex and related environmental pressures are still not adequately tackled.In the context of business and policy, environmental pressures and impacts should be considered as much as possible in an integrated manner. This is fundamental to be able to avoid unintended burden shifting from one impact to another, or from one stage (e.g., production of a good) to another (e.g., consumption).Life cycle-based methodologies are useful to compare options, especially when complex supply chains are involved. Indeed, by applying a life-cycle approach, priorities can be identified more transparently and inclusively. For example, policies can be targeted more effectively so that the maximum environmental benefit is achieved relative to the effort expended.Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)—due to its systemic approach—is considered to provide a valuable support in integrating sustainability into design, innovation and evaluation of products and services, and to related policies.13.1.1 What Is LCA?
LCA is one of the methodologies in the toolbox of Life Cycle Thinking (LCT). LCT is a broad concept that facilitates an integrated assessment of the benefits and the burdens in terms of environmental, social and economic issues for specific products, regions, and so on, analyzing supply chains, use phase, and end-of-life of goods and services. LCT is made operational through Life Cycle Management (LCM). LCM is a management approach that puts the tools and methodologies in the LCT tool box into practice. It is a product management system that helps businesses to minimize burdens associated with their product or product portfolio during its entire life cycle. LCA and LCT have traditionally focused on the environmental burdens. However, more recent methodologic developments have aimed at extending LCT to also evaluate social issues (Social Life Cycle Assessment, SLCA) and economic issues (Life Cycle Costing, LCC) towards a complete and comprehensive Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) (Figure 13.1
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 - PDFEmerging Technologies
Socio-Behavioral Life Cycle Approaches
- Nora Savage, Michael E. Gorman, Anita Street, Nora Savage, Michael E. Gorman, Anita Street(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Jenny Stanford Publishing(Publisher)
18 Assessing Emerging Technology Systems 2012; Graedel & Allenby 2010). Currently, efforts are underway to expand LCA techniques to include social science dimensions, with the expressed desire to create “sustainability life cycle assessments,” or SLCAs (see chapter 1, this volume). While this research will no doubt prove interesting and valuable in extending the current limited remit of LCAs and may be applicable to particular physical artifacts or uses of materials, it is highly unlikely that such approaches will be useful in evaluating the implications of emerging technology systems for a number of fundamental reasons. First, powerful emerging technology systems are inherently unpredictable and cause profound and unforeseeable changes across economic, social, institutional, and cultural systems (Freeman & Louca, 2001; Rosenberg and Birdzell, 1986); they are thus not well characterized by techniques that rely on historical data. Second, technology systems, as opposed to mere artifacts or particular uses of given materials, are quintessential complex adaptive systems. This means that any coherent modeling effort, such as an LCA, is necessarily at best only partial (Allenby & Sarewitz, 2011). Finally, and perhaps most fundamentally, technology systems do not have life cycles: what is the life cycle of railroad technology (as opposed to, say, the life cycle of a particular locomotive, which can be defined and measured)? The life cycle of the Internet? Of social networking? Of pharmacological cognitive enhancement technology? This does not mean that analytical frameworks cannot be deployed; indeed, one possibility is presented in this chapter. But it does mean that LCA, in any recognizable configuration, is not an appropriate method for understanding emerging technology systems. Before engaging in a more detailed discussion, it is worth emphasizing the difference between technology as artifact and emerging technology systems.
eBook - PDF- Suman Dutta, Chaudhery Mustansar Hussain(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Academic Press(Publisher)
Moreover, MCDA is useful to make decisions among different options. Depending on the scope (global, continental, national, regional, or local), the interests (public, private), the system itself (a factory, a product, a mechanism, a process, or a city, etc.), these tools are useful in the search for the “best” solutions, that is, cost-effective, socially acceptable, environment-friendly, etc. From an environment point of view, LCA is usually recognized as a well-known method to evaluate the impact on nature and human health of products and/or sys-tems. The LCA rationale is easily transposable to life cycle costing (LCC) and even social LCA (SLCA), to consider aspects other than the environment. Hence a multi-ple approach to tackle a problem may be faced using a combination of those (LCA, LCC, SLCA), known as a life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). While there are thousands of LCA studies in scientific and business literature, LCSA works are not so common. For a sustainability assessment of complex systems, including the exploration of multiple derivatives or future scenarios, joint methods integrating various of the mentioned methodologies and tools might be needed. 484 Sustainable Fuel Technologies Handbook This multifaceted tactic of using several methodological frameworks to deal with a problem is a complex task from the side of the analysts. Different methods usually differ in the nature of the objects they include so a sort of harmonization is required to interpret parameters. This requires specific knowledge from the modelers to merge different parts of the system, and it is hard to automatize. In the case of cit-ies, there are not so many holistic approaches encompassing energy, economy, and emissions in addition to sustainability assessments. Moreover, there is a lack of satisfactory, that is, useful, reliable, and complete, inputs (data) in energy planning for policy makers at the city level.
eBook - PDFProduct Design for the Environment
A Life Cycle Approach
- Fabio Giudice, Guido La Rosa, Antonino Risitano(Authors)
- 2006(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
It has been defined as “a systematic process for evaluating the life cycle costs of a product, product line, process, system, or facility by identifying environmental consequences and assigning monetary value to those consequences” (EPA, 1995). A much more complete approach is one that refers to the concept of LCCA as described in Section 6.1, involving the identification and evaluation of all the costs associated with the entire life cycle of a product, process, or activity, including costs deriving from its environmental impact. This concept, which retraces the SETAC definition of LCA, does not limit the economic analysis to the realm of environmental costs alone, as happens in the case of Life Cycle Cost Assessment. Instead, it extends the analysis to cover the entire system of costs associable with the life cycle. The observation of some similarities between LCA and LCCA could be misleading, making their integration seem simple or even intrinsic to their very nature: • Their “life cycle thinking” approach, reflected in the names of both the analysis instruments
eBook - ePubEcological Economics and Industrial Ecology
A Case Study of the Integrated Product Policy of the European Union
- Jakub Kronenberg(Author)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Taylor & Francis(Publisher)
1 Now, as a result of that broad interest, LCA has become probably the most established tool of industrial ecology.According to SETAC, LCA can be defined as follows.The life-cycle assessment is an objective process to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product, process, or activity by identifying and quantifying energy and material usage and environmental releases, to assess the impact of those energy and material uses and releases on the environment, and to evaluate and implement opportunities to effect environmental improvements. The assessment includes the entire life cycle of the product, process or activity, encompassing extracting and processing raw materials; manufacturing, transportation, and distribution; use/re-use/ maintenance; recycling; and final disposal.(Graedel and Allenby 1995: 108)More concisely, ISO standards describe LCA as a ‘compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle’ (ISO 2006a: clause 3.2). Thus, an LCA can serve to identify places in the life-cycle of a product where the most significant environmental improvement can be achieved. Also, it can be used to describe and, under numerous conditions, to compare different products with regard to their environmental performance throughout the whole life-cycle. In the former sense, performing an LCA resembles launching a search for leverage points (optimization of products’ environmental performance). The latter is possible through the application of functional thinking and the definition of a functional unit, which will be introduced in the following subsection. I then move on to the presentation of the LCA procedure and its applications; finally, I review some of the limitations of LCA as it is currently practised.
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.
- María José Bastante-Ceca, Jose Luis Fuentes-Bargues, Levente Hufnagel, Florin-Constantin Mihai, Corneliu Iatu, María José Bastante-Ceca, Jose Luis Fuentes-Bargues, Levente Hufnagel, Florin-Constantin Mihai, Corneliu Iatu(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- IntechOpen(Publisher)
Introduction Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the quantification of potential environmental impacts and the resource use throughout a product’s life cycle: from raw material acquisition, via production and use phases, to waste management [1]. It has been frequently applied by consultants, researchers, industry, and authorities for the past 30 years. It has proven useful for gaining knowledge on the life cycle, for communi-cation of environmental information, and for various kinds of decision-making. Meanwhile, it was clear almost from the start that results from different LCAs can contradict each other. This is still true, despite many attempts to harmonize, standardize, and regulate LCA. From history, we learn that it is not realistic to expect LCA to deliver a unique and objective result. It should not be regarded as a single unique method; it is more fruitful to consider it a family of methods. Attributional LCA (ALCA) and consequential LCA (CLCA) are important groups within this family of methods. The choice between ALCA and CLCA guides other methodological decisions in the LCA, such as the choice of input data and the modeling of processes with multiple products. However, within ALCA and CLCA, Sustainability Assessment at the 21st Century 42 there are still many decisions to be made—many versions or members within each group in the LCA family. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss and clarify key concepts in relation to ALCA and CLCA and to guide the reader through the necessary and subjective methodological choices. The example used often relates to the supply of electricity in the life cycle, because much of the methodological debate has been on how to model electricity. The chapter is still relevant to all kinds of LCA, because energy supply is part of virtually all LCAs and because most of the discussion is valid also for modeling other parts of the life cycle.
eBook - PDF- Rainer Roldan Fiscal(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Arcler Press(Publisher)
This technique is used by designers to evaluate their products. LCAs can assist in avoiding a narrow viewpoint on environmental challenges by: • Collecting data of related material and energy inputs as well as the environmental outputs; • Analyzing the possible impacts related to the inputs and outputs previously identified; and • Understanding the outcomes to make a more educated decision (Keoleian, 1993). The main objective of LCA is the comparison of all the environmental factors that can be assigned to the services and products by measuring all the inputs and outputs of material life-cycle and how it can affect its surroundings. This data is used in improving the processes, sustenance policies and deliver a more profound basis for educated decisions (Cao, 2017; Al-Waeli et al., 2019). Life-cycle is a term referred to the concept of a fair and complete analysis of the raw material extraction, production, distribution, utilization, as well as its recycling along with the transportation steps required by the existence of that product. Two kinds of LCA exist. Attributional LCAs establish or attribute the factors associated with the product or service to a specific point in time (past-oriented). On the other hand, Consequential LCAs identify the environmental concerns of a verdict or a suggested modification in a system under consideration (future-oriented), due to which, its economic and market implications might be considered as well. Potential impacts on society or social implications are assessed by Social LCA which is a different method to life-cycle analysis. This method must be considered as corresponding to environmental LCA (Andrews, 2009). LCA procedures are a part of environmental management standards (ISO 14000): ISO 14044:2006 and 14040:2006 (previous versions of ISO Life-Cycle Analysis 179 14041 were replaced by ISO 14044 to ISO 14043).
- Helena Bartolo, Paulo Jorge Da Silva Bartolo, Nuno Manuel Fernandes Alves, Artur Jorge Mateus, Henrique Amorim Almeida, Ana Cristina Soares Lemos, Flávio Craveiro, Carina Ramos, Igor Reis, Lina Durão, Telma Ferreira, José Pinto Duarte, Filipa Roseta, Eduardo Castro e Costa, Filipe Quaresma, João Pau(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
The implementation of environmental product footprints into management processes and strate-gic decision making is still in its development. One way of supporting the integration of LCA results in management processes and decision making can be the monetization of environmental impacts. This describes the expression of emissions 328 on both product specific economic indicators as well environmental impacts and thereby identi-fies the internal value of environmental impacts for a specific organization, the so-called shadow price while also determining an optimized product portfolio by taking into account the environmen-tal limitations. The approach is based on the sim-plex algorithm, an established method often used in production planning and operational manage-ment to support the optimal allocation of scarce resources (Geiger & Kanzow 2002). 2 METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH 2.1 Life cycle assessment Life Cycle Assessment is a method widely accepted and applied in both industry and science. It allows to systematically quantifying the environmental impacts of products, processes or services. It is standardized in ISO 14040 (2006a) and ISO 14044 (2006b), which defines the requirement for LCA studies to ensure transparency and reproducibil-ity of results. LCA determines the environmental impacts along the entire value chain, from raw material extraction over production to operation and finally the end of life stage. It identifies the relevance of each life cycle stage and also the con-tributing processes or materials. Thereby, it offers the basis for a systematic optimization processes for products and services, as it allows to specifically tar-geting relevant sources of environmental impacts. LCA results are expressed in impact categories. These are grouping environmental impacts of dif-ferent emissions according to their contribution to different impacts. Such an impact category is for example Global Warming Potential (GWP).
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