Life Cycle Assessment

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Life Cycle Assessment - an environmental
assessment method
IIIEE, MSc Programme, ESI course, LCA
module Week 39, 2005 Dr. Andrius Plepys
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What is better?
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Objective and focus

• Objectives
• Familiarity with the main approaches and tools
  used in practice
• understanding drawbacks, pros and cons of
  environmental impact assessments
• Focus
• approaches for assessing industrial environmental
  impacts and LCA tools
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
• Other Material Flow Analysis (MFA) Ecological
  footprint (EF) Input-output assessments (IOA)
• Impact assessment tools
• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
• Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)

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A Gradual Change of Perspective
Air emissions
Raw material, energy
Waste, water discharges
Thomas Lindhqvist
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Emissions of Chromium from Point Sources
(industry) vs. Consumption
tons
Kretsloppsdelegationen rapport 199714, Fig. 213
Thomas Lindhqvist
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The life cycle concept
The life cycle concept relies on a
cradle-to-grave" way of thinking about products
and services recognising that all life-cycle
stages besides economic also have environmental
impacts
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From Point Sources to Diffuse Emissions
Distribution
Components
Raw materials
Usage
End-of-LifeManagement
A Life Cycle Perspective
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Product LCAs
Which product is better from the life cycle
view? Functional perspective of LCA
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Flow diagrams
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The two types of questions addressed
Which life cycle stage has the largest
environmental impact?
Which product is better from the life cycle
perspective?
Andrius Plepys, IIIEE 2005
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Potential use of LCA

• Two main categories of potential use
• To support decisions,
• As an instrument to handle information
• Two main domains of LCA use
• inside organisation for internal purposes
• externally for public purposes

THINK What implications does this all have for
the use of LCA results?
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Who is using LCA and for what

• Companies
• Authorities
• Individual consumers
• Consumer associations
• NGOs
• Lobbying groups

For what? Think about it!
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LCA framework

• Basically an LCA is
• compilation of the inputs, outputs of material
  flows throughout product/service system and
  evaluation of their potential environmental
  impacts

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Methodological contributions

• SETAC, 1993 (Society for Environmental Toxicology
  and Chemistry, USA)
• The Nordic Guidelines, 1995
• ISO, 1997 (International Standards Organisation)
• ISO 140401997 -- Principles and framework
• ISO 140411998 Goal/scope definition
  inventory analysis
• ISO 140421999 -- Impact assessment
• ISO 140431999 -- Interpretation
• ISO 140481999 -- LCA data documentation format
• ISO 140491999 -- Examples of application of ISO
  14041 to goal scope definition and inventory
  analysis

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from ISO 14040.2 Life Cycle Assessment -
Principles and Guidelines
Life Cycle Consecutive and inter-linked stages
of a product or service system, from the
extraction of natural resources to the final
disposal Life Cycle Assessment 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 system throughout its life cycle
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ISO 14040 framework
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System boundaries
Andrius Plepys, IIIEE 2004
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I. Goal Definition and Scoping

• Planning an LCA
• Functional unit
• Scoping of the Study
• Product(s) or service(s)
• System boundaries
• Data quality goals

Goal Scope
Inventory
Impact assessment
Classification
Characterisation
Valuation
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a) Planning an LCA

• Choosing the right products to compare
• Time, effort and cost issues
• Who are intended users?

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a) Functional unit

• weight, volume, area
• economic value
• quality aspects
• how consumers see it
• (Seminar focus)

m3, kg, ha, , ?
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a) Functional unit

• Functional unit - is a relevant and well-defined,
  strict measure of the function that the system
  delivers (user function) and it is the basis for
  the analysis. All inventory and impact assessment
  information is related to the functional unit
  (Nordic Guidelines, 199520)

or simply speaking Quantified performance of
a product system for use as a reference unit in
life cycle assessment study
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b) Scoping of the Study

• The functional view and the choice of
  alternatives
• Scoping
• System boundaries
• Life-cycle boundaries
• Time boundaries
• Geographical boundaries
• Environmental aspects

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System cut-offs
Cut offs
Cut offs
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Which is better?
Non-rechargable batteries
Rechargable batteries
Ni-Cd
Zn-C
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II. Inventory analysis
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II. Inventory analysis

• Phase of life cycle assessment involving the
  compilation and quantification of inputs and
  outputs, for a given product system throughout
  its life cycle

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Inventory example
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I lift you grab. Was that concept just a
little too complex, Carl?
Often things that seem to be too complex, are not
in reality
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Issues to consider

• Product system
• identifying systems functions,
• defying systems boundaries,
• life-cycle flow diagrams
• normally not quantified in LCA
• capital infrastructures,
• accidents, impacts caused by personnel,
• human resources

Goal Scope
Inventory
Impact assessment
Classification
Characterisation
Valuation
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The procedure

• Collecting emission and resource use data from
  the life cycle and adding for each type of
  environmental impacts

Goal Scope
Inventory
Impact assessment
Classification
Characterisation
Valuation
Andrius Plepys, IIIEE 2004
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Murphys 3rd law of technology

• Whenever a system becomes completely defined,
  some damn fool discovers something which either
  abolishes the system or expands it beyond
  recognition.

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Data quality

• Data quality vs. time costs
• What is old data ?
• What average data?
• What is site-specific data?
• What is marginal data?

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Data quality -- Sources

• Data provided by company
• Own measurements
• Interviews with experts
• Public literature
• Theoretical models
• Databases and LCA software
• Legal max. emission values
• Qualitative estimates

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Data quality what do you think?

• For collection
• Correctness
• Reliability
• Integrity
• Usability
• Portability
• Maintainability
• Flexibility
• Testability

• For evaluation
• Scope
• Empirical Status
• Description
• Reality
• Age
• Source
• Accuracy
• Completeness

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(from Murphys laws) Finagles 3rd law

• In any collection of data, the figure most
  obviously correct, beyond all need of checking,
  is the mistake.
• Corollaries
• 1. No one whom you ask for help will see it.
• 2. Everyone who stops by with unsought advice
  will see it immediately.

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Data types. Examples

• site-specific
• industry branch-specific
• technology-specific
• regional, national, global averages
• measured randomly on-site
• averaged from secondary sources
• estimated using emission factors
• marginal data

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Allocation
Allocation - partitioning the input or output
flows of a unit process to the product system
under study.
Another system
Boundary of our system
X
A
Y
B
How much of X, Y, P, W should be attributed to
our system?
W
P
(Seminar focus)
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Uncertainty Sensitivity Assessment

• All assumptions, simplifications, estimations,
  etc. must be tested using sensitivity analysis
• Data quality must be checked to reduce
  accumulated errors. This means estimating ranges
  of data uncertainty.

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III. Impact Assessment

• Putting the environmental values on the inventory
  figures , i.e. estimating environmental impacts
• Translating the environmental values into
  readable/accountable form
• Steps
• classification,
• characterisation,
• (normalisation),
• valuation

Goal Scope
Inventory
Impact assessment
Classification
Characterisation
Valuation
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Impact categories (example)

• Resource use
• energy and materials
• water
• land (including wetlands)
• Human health
• toxic impacts
• non-toxic impacts
• impacts in work environment

• Ecological impacts
• Global warming
• Ozone depletion
• Acidification
• Eutrophication
• Photo-oxidant formation
• Eco-toxic impacts
• Biodiversity

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III.1 Classification

• impact assessment step in which the data from the
  inventory are grouped into a number of
  environmental impact categories

Goal Scope
Inventory
Impact assessment
Classification

• global warming CO2, CO, VOC, CH4, N2O,
• acidification NOx, SOx , Cl

Characterisation
Valuation
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• Grouping emission and resource use according to
  impact categories

Andrius Plepys, IIIEE 2005
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III.2 Characterization

• step, in which impacts within each category are
  aggregated with the objective of producing an
  impact profile

Goal Scope
Inventory
Impact assessment

• global warming X of global warming
• acidification Y of accidification

Classification
Characterisation
Valuation
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III.3 Normalisation

• In the normalization step, data from the
  characterization are related to the total
  magnitude of the given impact category in some
  given area and time.

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III.4 Valuation

• an attempt to aggregate the impacts from
  different impact categories so that the disparate
  types and amounts of impacts could be compared
• or simply speaking
• A method of how to transform the list from the
  whole characterization step into one figure.

Goal Scope
Inventory
Impact assessment

• 250 GWP
• 345 AP
• 500 EP
• 225 ODP

? ?
Classification
Characterisation
Valuation
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(No Transcript)
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Example What is the env. impact of ...?
One pollutant - several different impact
categories

• global warming
• CO2, CH4, CO, VOC, N2O, O3
• acidification
• NOx, SO2 , HCl,
• photochemical oxidant formation
• NOx, CO, VOC

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Example. Result of Classification
Lists of inventory data for each impact category

• global warming
• CO2 - 250 kg
• CH4 - 50 kg
• N2O - 10 kg
• HCFs - 20 g

• acidification
• SO2 - 20 kg
• NOX - 40 kg
• HCl - 30 kg
• ..
• ..

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Example. Characterization (weighting factors)

• Eg. global warming
• CO2 1 kg CO2 - equiv./kg
• CH4 21 kg CO2 - equiv./kg
• N2O 310 kg CO2 - equiv./kg
• HCFs 9,000 kg CO2 - equiv./kg

Eg. acidification SO2 1 kg SO2 -
equiv./kg NOX 0.7 kg SO2 -
equiv./kg HCl 1.5 kg SO2 -
equiv./kg
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Calculation of Impacts in Characterisation Step

• Global warming
• CO2 250 kg 1 kg/kg 250 kg
• CH4 50 kg 21 kg/kg 1,050 kg
• N2O 10 kg 310 kg/kg 3,100 kg
• HCFs 0.2 kg 9,000 kg/kg 1,800 kg
• Total
  6,200 kg
• Accidification
• SO2 20 kg 1 kg/kg 20 kg
• NOx 40 kg 0.7 kg/kg 28 kg
• HCl 30 kg 1.5 kg/kg 45 kg
• Total
  93 kg

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(!) Important Assumptions

• Quantities of emissions can be added, i.e. the
  relationships are linear and there are no
  thresholds
• Impacts of specific quantities of emissions are
  not site-specific (no geographical dependencies)
• All time dependencies of impacts can be
  translated to present values

Thomas Lindhqvist
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Result of Characterisation

• One figure for each impact category headline,
  e.g.
• Global warming 6,200 kg (GWP)
• Acidification 93 kg (SO2- equiv.)
• ..........

Thomas Lindhqvist
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Typical result of characterisation

• Global Warming
• 6,200 GWP (Global Warming Potentials)
• Acidification
• 93 g SO2-equivalents
• Eutrophication
• 345 g PO4-equivalents
• Stratospheric Ozone Depletion
• 23.5 ODP (Ozone Depletion Potentials)
• ..........

Thomas Lindhqvist
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Impact assessment procedure
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III.4 Valuation methods

• Asking experts - panel methods
• Asking economists - miniaturization methods
  (WTP/WTA, EPS)
• Asking politicians - distance-to-target methods
  (NOEL, Eco-points/Eco-indicators, EDIP)

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IV. Life cycle interpretation

• Phase of LCA in which the findings of either the
  inventory analysis or the impact assessment, or
  both, are combined consistent with the defined
  goal and scope in order to reach conclusions and
  recommendations

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Potential accuracy of impact categoriesbased on
inherent characteristics
Source Owens (1997). Constraints on Moving from
Inventory to Impact Assessment, Journal of
Industrial Ecology, 1(43).
Thomas Lindhqvist
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Murphys 35th law of technology

• If you can't understand it,
• it is intuitively obvious.

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LCA software

• GaBi
• http//www.gabi-software.com/
• LCAiT
• http//www.lcait.com/
• KCL-ECO
• http//www.kcl.fi/eco/softw.html
• SimaPro
• http//www.pre.nl/simapro/default.htm
• Team 3.0
• http//www.ecobalance.com/software/team/gb_teamid
  x.html

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LCA-related journals

• The International Journal of Lifecycle Assessment
• http//www.ecomed.de/journals/lca/welcome.htm
• Journal of Cleaner Production
• http//www.elsevier.nl/locate/jclepro
• The Journal of Sustainable Product Design
• http//www.cfsd.org.uk/journal/
• Journal of Industrial Ecology
• http//mitpress.mit.edu/

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• THINK
• What are the strong and weak sides of LCA?