Related questions

What are the environmental impacts of using a specific resource/ raw material in general?

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) - MethodsAndTools
Role: Description of the method of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). A synthetic and didactic presentation by the MICA project.
LCA, LCI, LCIA, LCC: What’s the Difference? - Documentation
Role: Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a multi-step procedure for calculating the lifetime environmental impact of a product or service. LCI is the life cycle inventory, which is the data collection portion of LCA. LCI is the straight-forward accounting of everything involved in the “system” of interest. LCIA is life cycle impact assessment, the “what does it mean” step. In LCIA, the inventory is analyzed for environmental impact. LCI and LCA should not be confused with life cycle costing. LCC is another life cycle approach (i.e, cradle to grave) but it looks at the direct monetary costs involved with a product or service and not environmental impact…
ISO 14040:2006 Environmental management - Life cycle assessment -- Principles and framework - Data
Role: ISO 14040:2006 describes the principles and framework for life cycle assessment (LCA) including: definition of the goal and scope of the LCA, the life cycle inventory analysis (LCI) phase, the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) phase, the life cycle interpretation phase, reporting and critical review of the LCA, limitations of the LCA, the relationship between the LCA phases, and conditions for use of value choices and optional elements.
ISO 14044:2006 Environmental management - Life cycle assessment -- Requirements and guidelines - Data
Role: ISO 14044:2006 specifies requirements and provides guidelines for life cycle assessment (LCA) including: definition of the goal and scope of the LCA, the life cycle inventory analysis (LCI) phase, the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) phase, the life cycle interpretation phase, reporting and critical review of the LCA, limitations of the LCA, relationship between the LCA phases, and conditions for use of value choices and optional elements.
Life Cycle Impact Assessment CML2002 - Data
Role: A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) facilitates the systematic quantitative assessment of products, both goods and services, in terms of environmental, human health, and resource consumption considerations. The full life cycle of a product is taken into account– this includes the supply of raw materials, processing, transport, retail, use, as well as end-of-life waste management. Life Cycle Impact assessment (LCIA) is the phase in which the set of results of the Inventory Analysis, mainly the inventory table with emissions and extractions, is further processed and interpreted in terms of environmental impacts and societal preferences. To this end, a list of impact categories (environmental problems) is defined, and models for relating environmental interventions to suitable category indicators for these impact categories are selected. The actual modeling results are calculated in the characterization step, and an optional normalization serves to indicate the share of the modeled results in a worldwide or regional total. CML-IA is a database that contains characterization and normalization factors for life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). It contains the characterization factors for all baseline characterization methods mentioned in the Handbook on LCA, such as GWP100, POCP, HTPinf and AP. Guinée et al. (2002), J.B. Handbook on life cycle assessment. Operational guide to the ISO standards. I: LCA in perspective. IIa: Guide. IIb: Operational annex. III: Scientific background. Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN 1-4020-0228-9, Dordrecht. http://www.cml.leiden.edu/research/industrialecology/researchprojects/finished/new-dutch-lca-guide.html The CML2002 set of impact assessment factors are defined on the midpoint level (e.g. abiotic resource depletion of elements, abiotic resource depletion of fossil fuels, global warming, ecotoxicity, acidification etc.)
Life Cycle Impact Assessment ILCD recommended factors - Data
Role: A Life Cyscle Assessment (LCA) facilitates the systematic quantitative assessment of products, both goods and services, in terms of environmental, human health, and resource consumption considerations. The full life cycle of a product is taken into account– this includes the supply of raw materials, processing, transport, retail, use, as well as end-of-life waste management. Life Cycle Impact assessment (LCIA) is the phase in which the set of results of the Inventory Analysis, mainly the inventory table with emissions and extractions, is further processed and interpreted in terms of environmental impacts and societal preferences. To this end, a list of impact categories (environmental problems) is defined, and models for relating environmental interventions to suitable category indicators for these impact categories are selected. The actual modeling results are calculated in the characterization step, and an optional normalization serves to indicate the share of the modeled results in a worldwide or regional total. The European Platform on LCA (EPLCA) aims to harmonize the use of Impact Assessment factors. Therefore it provides guidance and data to facilitate LCIA. It equally outlines criteria against which models and indicators should be evaluated, covering both scientific aspects and stakeholder acceptability. The ILCD recommended set of impact assessment factors are defined on the midpoint level (e.g., abiotic resource depletion of elements, abiotic resource depletion of fossil fuels, global warming, ecotoxicity, acidification etc.)
Life Cycle Impact Assessment ReCiPe - Data
Role: A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) facilitates the systematic quantitative assessment of products, both goods and services, in terms of environmental, human health, and resource consumption considerations. The full life cycle of a product is taken into account– this includes the supply of raw materials, processing, transport, retail, use, as well as end-of-life waste management. ReCiPe is a method for the impact assessment (LCIA) in a LCA. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) translates emissions and resource extractions into a limited number of environmental impact scores by means of so-called characterization factors. The normalization factors serve to indicate the share of the modeled characterized results in a worldwide or regional total. There are two mainstream ways to derive characterization factors, i.e. at midpoint level and at endpoint level. ReCiPe calculates: - 18 midpoint indicators - 3 endpoint indicators Midpoint indicators focus on single environmental problems, for example climate change or acidification. Endpoint indicators show the environmental impact on three higher aggregation levels, being the 1) effect on human health, 2) biodiversity and 3) resource scarcity, converting midpoints to endpoints. ReCiPe Impact assessment database provides characterization and normalization factors for both levels, midpoint and endpoint. http://www.rivm.nl/dsresource?objectid=b9e34fd1-4ab4-40c4-917a-46a3cbebbc97&type=PDF Website: http://www.rivm.nl/en/Topics/L/Life_Cycle_Assessment_LCA/ReCiPe
Life Cycle Impact Assessment UNEP SETAC Life Cycle Initiative recommended factors - Data
Role: A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) facilitates the systematic quantitative assessment of products, both goods and services, in terms of environmental, human health, and resource consumption considerations. The full life cycle of a product is taken into account– this includes the supply of raw materials, processing, transport, retail, use, as well as end-of-life waste management. Life Cycle Impact assessment (LCIA) is the phase in which the set of results of the Inventory Analysis, mainly the inventory table with emissions and extractions, is further processed and interpreted in terms of environmental impacts and societal preferences. To this end, a list of impact categories (environmental problems) is defined, and models for relating environmental interventions to suitable category indicators for these impact categories are selected. The actual modeling results are calculated in the characterization step, and an optional normalization serves to indicate the share of the modeled results in a worldwide or regional total. The Life Cycle Initiative’s flagship has published guidelines for Life Cycle Impact Assessment, “Global Guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment Indicators Volume 1”. The publication identifies the “current best practice”, and recommended characterization factors in a variety of impact areas: •climate change; •health impacts of fine particulate matter; •water use impacts; and •land use impacts on biodiversity. What makes this guidance so unique is the global consensus-building process, and its endorsement by an international partnership. Such robust and international backing should make these indicators especially attractive to be used in policy and reporting frameworks requiring recognition and stability.
Life Cycle Inventory database ECOINVENT - Data
Role: A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) facilitates the systematic quantitative assessment of products, both goods and services, in terms of environmental, human health, and resource consumption considerations. The full life cycle of a product is taken into account– this includes the supply of raw materials, processing, transport, retail, use, as well as end-of-life waste management. A quantitative LCA-study requires Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data on technical processes included in the system under study. Mostly such data are collected on a case-by-case basis with the help of the companies involved. In LCI databases process data are often organized around a unit process. A unit process describes the produced goods (economic output), consumed goods (economic input) , emitted substances (environmental output) and consumed resources (environmental input). A produced economic output is economic input of the next process in the chain. In this way unit processes are linked to a cradle-to-grave process chain relevant for a specific product. ECOINVENT is a commercial database that provides well documented unit process data for thousands of products. The database contains both unit process data as also Life Cycle Inventory Results, which present the environmental inputs and outputs of a process chain.
Life Cycle Inventory database ELCD - Data
Role: A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) facilitates the systematic quantitative assessment of products, both goods and services, in terms of environmental, human health, and resource consumption considerations. The full life cycle of a product is taken into account– this includes the supply of raw materials, processing, transport, retail, use, as well as end-of-life waste management. A quantitative LCA-study requires Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data on technical processes included in the system under study. Mostly such data are collected on a case-by-case basis with the help of the companies involved. In LCI databases data are often organized around a unit process. A unit process describes the produced goods (economic output), consumed goods (economic input) , emitted substances (environmental output) and consumed resources (environmental input). A produced economic output is economic input of the next process in the chain. In this way unit processes are linked to a cradle-to-grave process chain relevant for a specific product. The ELCD (European reference Life Cycle Database) comprises Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data from front-running EU-level business associations and other sources for key materials, energy carriers, transport, and waste management. The respective data sets are officially provided and approved by the named industry association. The database contains both unit process data as also Life Cycle Inventory Results, which present the environmental inputs and outputs of a process chain.
Life Cycle Inventory database GaBi - Data
Role: A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) facilitates the systematic quantitative assessment of products, both goods and services, in terms of environmental, human health, and resource consumption considerations. The full life cycle of a product is taken into account– this includes the supply of raw materials, processing, transport, retail, use, as well as end-of-life waste management. A quantitative LCA-study requires Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data on technical processes included in the system under study. Mostly such data are collected on a case-by-case basis with the help of the companies involved. In LCI databases process data are often organized around a unit process. A unit process describes the produced goods (economic output), consumed goods (economic input) , emitted substances (environmental output) and consumed resources (environmental input). A produced economic output is economic input of the next process in the chain. In this way unit processes are linked to a cradle-to-grave process chain relevant for a specific product. The GaBi database is a commercial database which provides over 10,000 Life Cycle Inventory results for cradle-to-gate product chains. Data are based on primary data collection from global companies, associations and public bodies. These datasets have been developed from an underlying database of about 30,000 unit process data sets.
Life Cycle Inventory database UNEP SETAC Life Cycle Initiative - OpenLCA Nexus - Data
Role: OpenLCA Nexus is an online repository for LCA data. It combines data offered by world-leading LCA data providers such as PE International (GaBi databases), the ecoinvent centre (ecoinvent), or the Joint Research Centre from the European Commission (ELCD). This website contains a powerful search engine for LCA data that allows filtering requested data sets by database, or by year, geographical location, by industrial sector, and by product and price. Nexus contains free and “for purchase” data sets.
Analysis of existing Environmental Impact Assessment methodologies for use in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). - Data
Role: This document provides an analysis of existing methods for assessing the potential environmental impacts from emissions and resource use that are attributed to specific products in life cycle assessments. The main target audiences include developers of Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods, Life Cycle Assessment practitioners, and other technical experts in policy and business. Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) are scientific approaches behind a growing number of modern environmental policies and business decision support in the context of Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP). The International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) provides a common basis for consistent, robust and quality assured life cycle data, methods and assessments. These support coherent and reliable business and policy instruments related to products, natural resources, and waste management and their implementation, such as eco-labelling, carbon footprinting, and, green procurement.
A framework and requirements for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) models and indicators (ILCD Handbook) - Data
Role: This guidance document provides a framework and requirements for the models that are used to analyse the emissions into air, water and soil, as well as the resources consumed in terms of their contributions to different impacts on human health, natural environment, and natural resources. It supports the calculation of indicators for different impact categories such as climate change or acid rain in a Life Cycle Assessment.
Mancini, L., Benini, L., Sala, S. 2016. Characterization of raw materials based on supply risk indicators for Europe - ArticlesAndReports
Role: In this paper, the authors first explore how resource criticality could be interpreted, taking into account a wider perspective and a multidimensional concept. This includes the consideration of environmental and depletion aspects, in addition to the dominant interpretation, based on economic and geopolitical considerations. The authors then focus on the economic dimension of the resource criticality and propose the integration of this aspect in LCA through the use of characterization factors (CFs) based on the supply risk factors for Europe. Four different methodological options for resource security CFs are tested in the impact assessment of 50 processes and products.
Life Cycle Data Network - European Platform on Life Cycle Assessment - Data
Role: The Life Cycle Data Network (LCDN) was launched in Brussels on 6th February 2014. The LCDN is aimed at providing a globally usable infrastructure for the publication of quality assured LCA dataset (i.e. LCI datasets and LCIA method datasets) from different organizations ( e.g. industry, national LCA projects, research groups, and consultants). Website: http://eplca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/LCDN/