Life Cycle Analysis VI

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• Life Cycle Analysis VI
• Process Description

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1. Introduction
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Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA)

• Steps in developing a Life Cycle Analysis, or
  Life Cycle Assessment
• Definition of the goal and scope
• Life-cycle inventory analysis
• Materials
• Manufacturing
• Use
• Disposal
• Life-cycle impact assessment
• Relative environmental impact
• Impact assessment matrix
• Life-cycle interpretation

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OLFA Cutter

• We will use this product as an example of an LCA
  to understand how design decisions affect the
  environmental impact of the product.
• The important concept behind each step will be
  explained. It is important to understand the
  thinking behind these steps, even when the
  details of how to perform the step in a specific
  LCA might be unclear. Remember, the actual
  figures and calculations are not usually done by
  designers, but rather engineers. The designers
  role is to be able to read the results of an LCA,
  understand the relationship between design
  decisions and environmental impacts, and identify
  issues and opportunities. Also, the designer has
  to know when and how to ask for an LCA.

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Materials

• Start by identifying the materials in the
  product. For every material there is a set of
  inputs and outputs of energy and pollution. You
  should include the product, its packaging and
  every other object related to the product on an
  individual basis.
• PP Polypropylene
• ABS Acetyl Butene Styrene

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2. Definition of goal and scope
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Definition of the Goal and Scope

• The first step is to define the scope of the
  analysis. Usually, the analysis involves
  everything from the production of raw materials
  to the disposal of the object. For every material
  we consider inputs of energy, raw materials and
  consumables, as well as output of byproducts and
  waste.
• It can be argued that where one draws the line is
  an arbitrary decision. For practical purposes, it
  is usually where the system meets the production
  of capital goods. In our example we might include
  oil extraction but not the production of the
  equipment needed for it.

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Raw Materials Production Flowchart

• This is a flowchart of polypropylene (PP)
  manufacturing. This raw material is used in the
  Olfa cutter, so we have to consider every input
  and output of its production. A flowchart like
  this should be made for all other materials in
  the product (brass, steel, ABS, package
  cardboard, inks in the packaging, etc.) Avoided
  impacts are also taken into account, such as
  energy production at a municipal waste
  incineration plant.
• Inputs should include raw materials and energy
  resources on one hand, and products,
  semi-finished products or energy, which are
  outputs from other sources, on the other.
• Outputs include emissions (environmental output),
  and products, semi-finished products or energy
  (economic output).

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Manufacturing

• Identify the manufacturing processes used in the
  production of the product. Check if these
  processes are done simultaneously (e.g.
  co-injection) or sequentially (e.g. milling an
  insert that will later be used in plastic
  injection.)

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Manufacturing Flowchart
Analyze the manufacturing process. Identify every
input and output in the process. The flowchart
should identify the relationship between these
inputs and outputs, and the material, part or
process they belong to. Later on, this will allow
the designer to understand how the environmental
impact of the products parts is related to
specific design decisions.
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Use and Disposal

• Check what happens during the products use, such
  as what consumables are used and what their
  environmental impact is. You should perform an
  LCA on those products or consumables linked to
  the object. For example, for a coffee maker you
  would consider energy use, production of
  consumables (coffee filters, packets and
  containers) and any packaging for the
  consumables. In our example, we will consider the
  blades and their packaging.
• In terms of disposal, you should analyze the
  situation from a realistic perspective rather
  than applying wishful thinking. For example, you
  can include recycling only if the product is or
  will usually be recycled in the community where
  it is used. It is not about it being recyclable,
  but actually being recycled. Check if there are
  features of the product that impede proper
  disposal. In this example, the cutter is not
  designed for disassembly and therefore recycling.

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Use and Disposal

• Use
• Define average life-span of product
• 5 years
• Quantify consumables used during its lifetime
• 2 new blades per month 120 blades
• No feasible recycling program for used blades
• Disposal
• Fusing materials during manufacturing precludes
  recycling
• No spare parts are sold
• Both product and consumables end up in landfills

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3. Inventory analysis
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Life-Cycle Inventory Analysis

• The next step is to perform a Life-Cycle
  Inventory Analysis, where every substance or
  chemical produced during every step is counted
  and measured in relation to the individual
  product.
• From the emissions from the truck that transports
  the plastic to the factory to the ink that leaks
  into water bodies from the printing press, every
  chemical adds to the inventory.
• These figures are calculated in relation to the
  individual object by weight.
• The chart that follows is the inventory for the
  production of 100 grams of polypropylene (the
  approximate amount needed for 1 cutter.)

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Life-Cycle Inventory Analysis (PP)
Source Design Environment a global guide to
designing greener goods
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Life-Cycle Inventory
Raw Materials Acquisition
Inputs
Outputs
Manufacturing, Processing, and Formulation
Energy
Water Effluents
Distribution and Transportation
Airborne Emissions
Solid Wastes
Use/Re-Use/Maintenance
Other Environmental Releases
Raw Materials
Usable Products
Recycle
Waste Management
System Boundary
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4. Life Cycle Impact Assessment
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Environmental impact

• The environmental impact of these chemicals is
  measured according to scientific data compiled by
  different organizations. The figures take into
  account the region where the product is
  manufactured and where it is sold. A very simple
  example of how these factors are calculated can
  be foundat www.designgreen.org
  (Business-ecodesign tool Ecodesign methods for
  industrial designers, IDSA, Environmental
  Responsibility Section.)
• The degree of impact is related to the particular
  environmental issues in the corresponding region.
  The Relative Environmental Impact is usually
  measured in terms of
• Embodied energy
• Greenhouse gases
• Acidification
• Summer smog
• Eutrophication
• Solid waste

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Pears and apples

• An environmental assessment is performed
• Should we treat the discharge (B) or not (A)?

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The steps of LCIA

• Classification Assignment of emissions to impact
  categories according to their potential effects
• What does this emission contribute to?
• Characterisation Quantification of contributions
  to the different impact categories
• How much may it contribute?
• Normalisation Expression of the impact
  potentials relative to a reference situation
• Is that much?
• Valuation Ranking, grouping or assignment of
  weights to the different impact potentials
• Is it important?
• Interpretation Comparison of the different
  alternatives, sensitivity analysis
• Which alternative is better?

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Pears and apples

• Which is better - A or B?
• What is much and what is little?
• Trade-offs require common units
• The background load provides a common scale
• The person equivalent is
• the impact from an average person
• in a given reference year
• The reference region is the region of impact

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The person equivalent

• The background load -
• Societys emissions converted to impacts
• Common reference year
• Global emissions for global problems
• Regional emissions for regional problems
• Total impact divided by number of inhabitants
• the impact from an average person

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The European person equivalent
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The person equivalent
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The person equivalent

• The environmental space currently occupied per
  person
• Comparing across categories
• which are the largest environmental impacts?
• is it the environmental impact or the resource
  consumption (or occupational health) that is
  largest?
• Pedagogic
• comparison of different products and activities
• how large a part of my impact is caused by this
  product?
• Reliability control
• Developed for Denmark, Europe and several Asian
  countries

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Normalised impact profiles

• So should we treat or not?

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The need for values

• Large is not always the same as important - we
  must introduce values to the comparison
• Which impacts are
• most important and
• how important are they?
• What determines
• importance?
• Who determines
• importance?

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The need for values

• Criteria for importance of environmental impacts
• Probability of consequences
• cause-effect relations - how sure are we?
• resilience of affected systems?
• existence of thresholds?
• how far are we from critical impact levels?
• Gravity of consequences
• geographical scale
• population density
• severity of effect
• possibility to compensate damage
• Temporal aspects of consequences
• when will we feel the consequences?
• restoration - how long will they last (if we stop
  the impacts)?
• is the mechanism reversible?

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Criteria for environmental relevance
effect
exposure
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Stakeholders

• Who do we want to convince with the LCA?
• Shared values crucial to acceptance of results!
• Who are the stakeholders and what are their
  values?
• shareholders
• customers
• employees
• retailers
• authorities
• neighbours
• insurance companies
• NGOs (opinion leaders)
• .......
• What weighting factors will reflect the values of
  the most important stakeholders?

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Stakeholders

• Perform a weighting of the following four impact
  categories
• - global warming
• - stratospheric ozone depletion
• - photochemical ozone formation
• - ecotoxicity
• dividing 100 points between them

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Political reduction targets

• EDIP (Environmental Design for Industrial
  Products) uses political reduction targets
• only binding targets
• express the priorities of our society (inherent
  weighting)
• partially based on environmental relevance
• one common target year
• Representing the priorities of our society as
  reflected in the actions we undertake

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Priorities expressed by political reduction
targets

• What are the politically set targets for emission
  reductions?
• Targeted emissions are converted to impacts
• and inter-or extrapolated
• to a common target year

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Priorities expressed by political reduction
targets

• Weighting factors are calculated as

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Priorities expressed by political reduction
targets

• Using this weighting factor, the weighted impact
  potentials are expressed in the unit
• Targeted person equivalent, PET
• Weighting becomes equivalent to normalisation
  with the targeted PE rather than the actual PE

Actual impact in ref. year
Products impact potential
WEP
Actual impact in ref. year
Targeted impact in target year
Products impact potential

Targeted impact in target year
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PET - the targeted person equivalent

• What is the targeted personal environmental space
  for 2004 in Europe?

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PET - the targeted person equivalent

• Weighting
• from PE to PET

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PET - the targeted person equivalent

• Applying current political targets, we should
  treat

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Life-Cycle Impact Assessment cutter case
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Impact Assessment Matrix
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Summary

• The person equivalent as a means to
• bring different impacts from different activities
  on a common scale
• quantify the environmental space currently
  occupied by each of us
• Global scale for global impacts, regional scale
  for regional impacts
• The targeted person equivalent
• bringing societys priorities into the comparison
• predicting the person equivalent in near future
• an operational way of addressing the personal
  ecological space

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5. Life-Cycle Interpretation
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Elements of interpretation

• Uncertainty analysis
• What are the uncertainties for individual
  environmental assumptions, processes and
  exchanges and what are the resulting
  uncertainties of the total results
• Sensitivity analysis
• What is the sensitivity of the result (and the
  conclusions) to variations in the key figures of
  the LCA

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Elements of interpretation

• Sensitivity analysis
• Analyse the assumptions and value-choices made to
  determine the key figures of the assessment
• delimitation of the product system
• allocation models
• use patterns
• life time
• data for key processes or missing data
• ......
• Determine the sensitivity of the results and
  conclusions to the possible changes in the key
  figures due to
• statistical uncertainty of key figures
• possible variations in assumptions and choices

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Interpretation

• The results of the sensitivity analysis are used
  for
• qualification of the conclusions of the study
  (how certain are they, what could change them?)
• feedback for scope definition, inventory analysis
  and impact assessment

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Interpretation in your reporting

• Keep track of all assumptions and choices
• Perform sensitivity analysis of these
• Report the sensitivity analysis quote it in your
  scope definition chapter and discuss it in your
  discussion chapter
• Draw the relevant conclusions in your conclusion
  chapter and evaluate the robustness of them
• The reader must feel confident that your
  conclusions also respect the uncertainties of the
  assumptions and choices that you made throughout
  the study

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The steps of LCIA

• Classification What does this emission
  contribute to?
• Assignment of emissions to impact categories
  according to their potential effects
• Characterisation How much may it contribute?
• Quantification of contributions to the different
  impact categories
• Normalisation Is that much?
• Expression of the impact potentials relative to a
  reference situation
• Valuation Is it important?
• Ranking, grouping or assignment of weights to the
  different impact potentials
• Interpretation Which alternative is better and
  what determines it?
• Comparison of the different alternatives,
  sensitivity analysis

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Life-Cycle Interpretation

• Identify the main areas where design can reduce
  the environmental impact of the product. This is
  the last step of a traditional LCA.

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Life-Cycle Interpretation

• This information can be used to compare different
  products, design a new product, or further
  develop an existing one.
• VERY IMPORTANT An LCA will not result in a
  sustainable grade for a product. It will only
  identify the areas where work is needed and will
  help designers understand the relationship
  between design decisions and their environmental
  impact.