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    Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

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    mesfin
    LCA is a methodology to evaluate the environmental impacts of a product or activity throughout its lifecycle, from raw material extraction through production, use, and disposal. It analyzes a product system by breaking it down into individual processes and identifying the energy and material flows between them. This document provides an overview of LCA terminology, methodology, uses, limitations, and gives an example using openLCA software to model flows, processes, and product systems to quantify environmental impacts.

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    Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

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    mesfin
    171 views53 pages
    LCA is a methodology to evaluate the environmental impacts of a product or activity throughout its lifecycle, from raw material extraction through production, use, and disposal. It analyzes a product system by breaking it down into individual processes and identifying the energy and material flows between them. This document provides an overview of LCA terminology, methodology, uses, limitations, and gives an example using openLCA software to model flows, processes, and product systems to quantify environmental impacts.

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    LCA is a methodology to evaluate the environmental impacts of a product or activity throughout its lifecycle, from raw material extraction through production, use, and disposal. It analyzes a product system by breaking it down into individual processes and identifying the energy and material flows between them. This document provides an overview of LCA terminology, methodology, uses, limitations, and gives an example using openLCA software to model flows, processes, and product systems to quantify environmental impacts.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    171 views53 pages

    Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

    Uploaded by

    mesfin
    LCA is a methodology to evaluate the environmental impacts of a product or activity throughout its lifecycle, from raw material extraction through production, use, and disposal. It analyzes a product system by breaking it down into individual processes and identifying the energy and material flows between them. This document provides an overview of LCA terminology, methodology, uses, limitations, and gives an example using openLCA software to model flows, processes, and product systems to quantify environmental impacts.

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    Life Cycle Assessment

    (LCA)
    Basics and case study
    Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA)
    • A concept and methodology to evaluate the environmental effects of a
    product or activity holistically, by analyzing the whole life cycle of a
    particular product, process, or activity (U.S. EPA, 1993).
    • LCA studies analyze the environmental aspects and potential impacts
    throughout a product's life cycle (e.g., cradle-to-grave) from raw material
    acquisition through production, use and disposal (ISO).
    Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA)

    • It is ‘Consecutive and interlinked stages of a product (or service) system,


    from raw material acquisition or generation from natural resources to final
    disposal. Life cycle stages include acquisition of raw materials, design,
    production, transportation/delivery, use, end-of-life treatment and final
    disposal.
    Terms

    • Life cycle analysis


    • Ecobalance
    • Cradle-to-grave analysis
    Structure of LCA

    Goal and Scope

    Inventory Analysis Interpretation

    Impact Assessment
    LCA Uses
    • Process analysis
    • Material selection
    • Product evaluation
    • Product comparison
    • Policy-making
    • Measuring performance
    • Marketing
    Criticisms / Limitations
    • Data reliability and quality is questionable.
    • Models based on assumptions.
    • Problem boundaries are arbitrary.
    • Scale issues - global -> local, etc.
    • Uncertainty is everywhere
    • Spatial and temporal issues
    • Comparisons between studies difficult
    • No single, accepted method
    Important Note on Context

    • LCA should be one part of a broad environmental assessment


    • If comparing with LCA, all assumptions and methods should be
    consistent
    • Especially problematic for validating against external studies
    Definitions
    • Elementary flows - material or energy entering or leaving the system, directly
    to/from the environment, without human transformation
    • Unit process - smallest portion of a product being studied for which LCI data
    available
    • Inputs / Outputs - materials or energy entering or leaving a unit process
    Scope Considerations
    • Setting all the parameters for study
    • e.g., functional unit, boundaries, data, etc.
    • Whether it will be critically reviewed
    • May be iterative (update in progress)
    • Supports product system diagram
    • Realize LCA can be used for ‘products’, ‘processes’, ‘systems’, etc.
    • Functional unit definition ensures unit consistency for validation
    and comparison
    Product Systems
    • Collections of unit processes, elementary flows, and product
    flows
    • Also shows system boundary
    • Processes, flows maybe in / out of bounds
    • In: fuel, energy, materials, …
    • Out: emissions, waste, …
    Simple Example - Tree

    Sunlight O2
    Environ- CO2 Energy
    Tree
    ment System?
    Water
    Wood

    If we wanted to do a life cycle inventory of a tree, we could draw


    the boundary in one of several places
    Is a life cycle assessment a requirement in ISO
    14001?
    • No, it is not a requirement as clearly stated in Annex to ISO 14001 A6.1.2:
    ‘When determining environmental aspects, the organization considers a life
    cycle perspective. This does not require a detailed life cycle assessment;
    thinking carefully about the life cycle stages that can be controlled or
    influenced by the organization is sufficient. Typical stages of a product life
    cycle include raw material acquisition, design, production,
    transportation/delivery, use, end-of-life treatment and final disposal. The
    life cycle stages that are applicable will vary depending on the activity,
    product or service.‘
    Why consider life cycle perspective?

    • The reason according to ISO 14001 is that ‘Some of the organization’s


    significant environmental impacts can occur during the transport,
    delivery, use, end-of-life treatment or final disposal of its product or
    service. By providing information, an organization can potentially prevent
    or mitigate adverse environmental impacts during these life cycle stages.
    The organization considers the extent of control or influence that it can
    exert over activities, products and services considering a life cycle
    perspective.
    ISO 14001 key requirements that refers to life
    cycle perspective are:
    • “6.1.2 Environmental aspects

    Within the defined scope of the environmental management system,


    the organization shall determine the environmental aspects of its
    activities, products and services that it can control and those that it
    can influence, and their associated environmental impacts,
    considering a life cycle perspective. “
    Operational Planning and Control

    • ”Consistent with a life cycle perspective, the organization shall:


    a) establish controls as appropriate to ensure that its environmental
    requirement(s) are addressed in the design and development process for
    the product or service, considering each stage of its life cycle;
    b) determine its environmental requirement(s) for the procurement of
    products and services as appropriate;
    c) communicate its relevant environmental requirement(s) to external
    providers, including contractors;
    • d) consider the need to provide information about potential significant
    environmental impacts associated with the transportation or delivery, use,
    end-of-life treatment and final disposal of its products and services.”
    Case study
    Using openLCA software package
    openLCA
    • openLCA is the open source software for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and
    Sustainability Assessment, developed since 2006 by GreenDelta2. As open
    source software, it is freely available, e.g. from the project website
    (www.openlca.org), without license costs.
    • openLCA can be used in various application areas, i.e.:
    • environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
    • economic Life Cycle Costing (LCC)
    • social Life Cycle Assessment (social LCA)
    • Carbon and Water Footprint
    • Design for Environment (DfE)
    • Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)
    Note

    • This includes step-by-step instructions for modelling flows, processes,


    products systems and projects in order to quantify environmental impacts of
    product systems and projects. Please note that this is not a comprehensive
    LCA, the example with LCA data given is for instructional purposes only.
    Resources

    • The example given is based on the "ELCD database 3.2" which is available free
    of charge on the Nexus web repository (https://nexus.openlca.org/databases).
    In order to quantify the environmental impacts of the system modeled, the
    Impact
    assessment methods have to be imported in openLCA. The LCIA methods
    "openlca_lcia_methods_1_5_5.zolca" are available in the Downloads section in
    the openLCA
    website (http://www.openlca.org/download_page#LCIA_methods).
    Commercial LCA databases
    Free LCA databases
    Editor
    Navigation
    windows
    Window
    Basic Modelling
    Example
    PET Granulate PC Granulate HDPL/PP/PB Granulate
    Flows
    Create a New flow
    Processes
    Create a New Process
    Product system

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