Lecture 5 - Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

1. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Introduction: Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)

The early roots of LCA are in the late 1960s. The results of some studies were reported as resource and emission profiles, but no quantitative assessment of the associated impacts on environment or resources were described. 1993 the International Organisation for Standardisation, ISO, launched a standardised process for LCA. More recently the European Commission created recommendations of best practice for LCA under the International Life Cycle Data system to support its Environmental Footprint guidelines. Additional the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative launched a flagship project to develop global recommendations of best practice for a number of impact categories, following a scientific consensusoriented approach [Hauschild et al., 2018]

Opposite to the concept of "from cradle to grave" is the concept "cradle to cradle". For further information about the cradle to cradle concept and the supporting NGO you can watch this video:

What is Cradle to Cradle?

The inventory for a product system quantifies the exchange between the product system and the environment. The lists of substance emissions and input of resources can be very long. Accordingly, the environmental relevance can differ substantially between the listed emissions and resources. [Hauschild et al., 20188]

LCA has become the recognized instrument to assess the ecological burdens and human health impacts connected with the complete life cycle (creation, use, end-of-life) of products, processes and activities, enabling the assessor to model the entire system from which products are derived or in which processes and activities operate. The typicall use of a LCA study is often to compare alternative products from an environmental perspective or to find the largest environmental impacts in the life cycle of a product. [Hauschild et al., 20188]

This project “German MENA University Network for Waste Management and Circular Economy”, implemented by the University Rostock (UR), Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) and University of Technology Dresden (TUD), Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), Constantine university 3 Algeria, Ain Shams University Egypt and Cadi Ayyad University Morocco is funded by the PREVENT Waste Alliance, an initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The contents of the Wastepedia course are the sole responsibility of German-MENA University Network and do not necessarily reflect the positions of all PREVENT Waste Alliance members or official policy positions of the governments involved. More information: https://prevent-waste.net/en/. ;

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