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LIFE CYCLE IMPACT ASSESSMENT AN INTRODUCTION AND INTERNATIONAL UPDATE
Citation:
BARE, JANE CRUM. LIFE CYCLE IMPACT ASSESSMENT AN INTRODUCTION AND INTERNATIONAL UPDATE. Presented at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, March 28, 2005.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
Research within the field of Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) has greatly improved since the work of Heijungs and Guinee in 1992. Within the UNEP / SETAC Life Cycle Initiative an effort is underway to provide recommendations about the direction of research and selection of LCIA methodologies. Some Initiative participants would like to standardize Life Cycle Impact Assessment so that a single model will be used for all LCAs. Others would simply appreciate additional guidance on individual impact categories. This and other issues will be explored from various perspectives, including geographical and political. The issues surrounding the question "Why is it so difficult to achieve an international consensus?" - will also be explored. The Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and other environmental Impacts (TRACI) will also be presented. TRACI was developed to allow the quantification of environmental impacts for a variety of impact categories which are necessary for a comprehensive impact assessment. See Figure 1. TRACI is consistent with U.S. EPA regulations and policies, and assumptions and value choices have been minimized. During the development of TRACI, the U.S. EPA decided not to aggregate between environmental impact categories, so many of the impact assessment methodologies within TRACI are based on the relative potency of the stressors at a common midpoint within the cause-effect chain. See Figure 2 for the example considering ozone depletion. This diagram shows that characterization could take place at midpoint level, in this case ozone depletion potential or at the endpoint levels (e.g., skin cancer, crop damage, immune system suppression). Analysis at a midpoint minimizes the amount of forecasting and effects modeling incorporated into the LCIA, thereby reducing the complexity of the modeling. Midpoint analysis also is more inclusive of all of the endpoint effects, and therefore increases the comprehensiveness of impacts. The technical approach underlying several impact categories will be presented.