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Environmental Decision Support with Consistent Metrics
Citation:
BARE, J. C. Environmental Decision Support with Consistent Metrics. Presented at 12th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference, Washington, DC, June 24 - 26, 2008.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
One of the most effective ways to pursue environmental progress is through the use of consistent metrics within a decision making framework. The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Sustainable Technology Division has developed TRACI, the Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and other environmental Impacts to facilitate the characterization of stressors that have potential effects, including ozone depletion, global warming, acidification, eutrophication, tropospheric ozone (smog) formation, ecotoxicity, human health effects, and fossil fuel depletion. TRACI can be used to provide decision support to sustainable development, industrial ecology, pollution prevention, or process design. The TRACI framework begins with the user-defined inventory of stressors. Within a gate-to-gate analysis inventory data is often available from the facility or facilities. Within an LCA this may be supplemented by inventory data from suppliers, and/or supplemental data from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and other public sources. TRACI users are encouraged to use the highest quality data whenever possible for minimal data and modeling uncertainty. Maintaining location for stressors is an important part of this data management. In cases when site-specificity is unknown, impact categories within TRACI often allow regional analysis (e.g., Northeast US) and finally, a site-generic characterization. Updated models or expansion of the number of stressors are available for the following impact categories: ozone depletion, global warming, smog formation, eutrophication, acidification, human health, and ecotoxicity. This talk will describe the impact assessment methodologies utilized and/or developed for each of the impact categories within TRACI.