Life Cycle Assessment - Essay Example

A SUMMARY OF THE LECTURES By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date A Summary of the Lectures In Lecture one, life cycle assessment (LCA) was defined and we observed that LCA focuses not only on environmental impacts, but also other considerations such as sustainability, social and health. It was observed that LCA is a life cycle approach that is extensively developed and defined. The LCA approach was specifically designed with the objective of considering products’ environmental impacts. The LCA involves the whole product life cycle from the sourcing of materials, manufacturing to utilisation as well as end-of-life. According to Williams (2009, p.1), LCA is currently applied widely in different industries, and it is crucial for the users to comprehend the LCA process. Williams (2009, p.1) defines LCA as a systematic approach to reviewing the complete life cycle of the product; that is, from material sourcing to end-life. LCA provides the decision-makers with a tool to assess the nature of the integrated social systems at the local and global level in long- and short-term perspectives while determining the actions needed to make the society more sustainable. We also learned that the LCA approach offers companies or researchers with quantifiable data for their products. Through the examination of the product’s life, the environmental impact of the materials and all processes could be examined. Importantly, the LCA enables the analysts to establish and examine the process/ product’s social, environmental, economical, and technological features needed for the management of the entire life cycle. We also briefly discussed the history of LCA: LCA surfaced in the 1960’s after issues of energy resources and raw materials created the need for a new approach that could cumulatively project supplies and use of future resource as well as account for the use of energy. The present life cycle inventory analysis techniques were laid down by Coca-Cola Company’s internal study that sought to determine the beverage container with least environmental releases and not largely influenced by natural resources supply. This resulted in Resource and Environmental Profile Analysis (REPA), which is the process involved in the quantification of products’ environmental releases and resource use. In 2002, LCA standards in ISO 14000 series was developed (Curran, 2006, p.5). Phases of the LCA approach were highlighted in Lecture one; definition of goal and scope, inventory analysis, impact Assessment, and interpretation. In the second lecture, the LCA standards were introduced. Standards offer guidance and context on a number of aspects such as verification, language, and structure. We observed that the objective of creating standards is to make a number of processes or activities consistent with the common methods or guidelines. According to Finkbeiner et al. (2006, p.84), the development of LCA’s international standards was a crucial step taken to consolidate LCA’s methods and procedures. These standards enabled the international community and stakeholders to accept LCA; however, the two new standards, ISO 14044 and ISO 14040 seek to improve the reliability of the previous standard and also remove their inconsistencies and errors. ISO 14044 lays down the requirements and offers guiding principles for LCA which includes: LCA goal and scope definition, the LCI, LCIA, and interpretation phases, LCA’s critical review as well as reporting, LCA limitations, and so forth. On the other hand, ISO 14040 outlines the framework and principle for LCA, but does not lay down the LCA individual phases’ methodologies. ISO 14040 key principles that were discussed in the second lecture include; life cycle perspective, environmental focus, functional unit and relative approach, iterative approach, comprehensiveness, and transparency. We also reviewed Scope 3 Standard that offers the guidance as well as requirements for organisations in preparation and announcement of GHG emissions inventory, which involves value chain activities’ indirect emissions. This standard is important because it offers a homogeneous step-by-step technique that facilitates the companies to recognise the full emissions impact of their value chain with the objective of directing the company efforts towards the opportunities of GHG reduction resulting in sustainable decisions regarding the activities as well as the products purchased, manufactured and sold by the company. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth lectures were focussed on the process life cycle assessment. Life Cycle Thinking was defined as a mode of thinking which involves the process/product’s social, environmental and economic impacts in all the life cycle phases. More importantly, Life Cycle Thinking enables the companies to recognise and enhance their social and environmental performance, while improving or maintaining the profits. During these lectures, we extensively discussed the four phases of the LCA approach. The first phase involves defining the goal and scope with the objective of understanding environmental impacts; for instance, the impacts of natural and artificial Christmas tree. Some examples of goal definitions as pointed out in the third lecture include the intended application, justifications for conducting the study, the audience and the study that would be made public. The second phase of LCA is life cycle inventories (LCI), which involves compiling and quantifying outputs as well as inputs for certain system. In addition, this phase involves collecting data on the Unit Processes (system part for collecting data). The LCI process involves collecting data as well as calculating procedures for quantification of important product system’s inputs and outputs, like resources use, emissions, and land/water related to the system. With the view to Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), Finkbeiner et al. (2010, p.3320) asserted that LCSA focuses on the trade-off between applicability as well as validity. LCSA is crucial because it influences the society’s sustainable development, which can be achieved by making them valid as well as applicable. The fourth lecture was a continuation of the process life cycle assessment, whereby we discussed the steps involved in LCI. Step one is data collection preparation in accordance with the definition of goal and scope. It was emphasised that date must be gathered for every unit process in the system boundary. The second step involves the collection of primary and secondary data. The collection of primary data focuses on gathering own data for certain system boundary’s processes while secondary data collection involves input-output databases, sources of literature as well as LCA databases. The other steps include validation of data, data Allocation, and associating data with the unit process and functional unit, and the last step is data aggregation. While still focussing on process life cycle assessment, the focus of the fifth lecture was on the reasons for undertaking LCIA. Basically, LCIA focuses on the translation of inventory results into data regarding the effects of resources, environments, and/or humans. The phases of LCIA include: (i) classification, which involves the assignment of results to sets of impacts; for instance, Methane and Carbon dioxide have been assigned to climate change. (ii) Characterisation, which involves calculating the category indicator results. The calculation of indicator values happens after the impact categories have been identified. The objective of characterisation is to transform quantitatively the flows of inventory into common units in order to facilitate comparison. (iii) LCIA profile, which involves profiling the results achieved from the previous step. (iv) Normalisation involves normalising the indicator results with the objective of determining all the indicators results’ magnitude of the product system being studied. (v) Grouping is conducted on the indicator results after normalisation. Generally involves sorting as well as ranking. (v) Weighting involves using numerical factors to convert the category indicator results. The Sixth lecture focused on life cycle interpretation, which is a phase where the inventory analysis findings together with those of impact assessment are integrated. According to ISO14040, reporting of LCA results should be accurate, fair, and complete. Therefore, in this phase, critical review is very important since it promotes not just scientific validity, but also transparency and consistency of the work. Besides that, evaluation is performed to check consistency, completeness, and sensitivity. In lecture seven, the focus was boundary selection as well as truncation errors, wherein boundary selection was described as an important of all LCA’s processes. it was mentioned that the process LCA has a number of disadvantages such as truncation error, complexity, accessibility of suitable and reliable data for the inventories, and the combination of various indicators in the inventory in addition to their problematic conversion into impacts. With the view to Input-Output Analysis, it was mentioned that the analysis offers a snap-shot of the multifaceted economic linkages and is suitable for linkage and reporting analysis. In general, IOA connotes the incorporation of other production factors like employment, energy and emissions of carbon dioxide. The Efootprint as indicated in lecture eight can be calculated using the formula shown below: Efootprint = q (I – A) - 1 y Where, q = pollution coefficients matrix I = identity matrix A = matrix of technology coefficients (I – A) - 1 = Leontief inverse y = the products’ final demand IOA is beneficial because it solves the problem of system boundary, can be performed faster, the data requirements are modest and extremely appropriate for suitable for top-down carbon footprint. In addition, IOA is suitable for 'hot-spots' analysis. Still, it has some shortcomings; for instance, modelling is normally static as well as retrospective, has aggregation errors, the proportionality between physical flows and financial flows is assumed. The 9th and 10th lectures focussed on the ISA Triple Bottom Line (TBL) tool, which is a software tool designed with the objective of creating comprehensive sustainability reports through inputting the revenue and expenditure accounts of the organisation. The ISA TBL tool can be used to report across different economic, social and environmental indicators selected from a collection of predefined indicators. The software performs a complete LCA of every impact in the organisation. The software can only be used for purposes of education, and not for financial gain or commercial reasons. The eleventh lecture focussed on the case studies with the view to Hybrid Life Cycle Assessment. The hybrid LCA as mentioned in the lecture is a combination of process data and input-output data. Basically, the Hybrid LCA is considered efficient and beneficial because it obtains financial information from various entities/cases. An ideal Hybrid Analysis involves three techniques; Process (life-cycle) Analysis, Environmentally Extended Input-Output Analysis, and Primary Data Collection. We focussed on three case studies: (i) the biofuel production environmental, economic and social impact. Malik et al. (2015, p.443) observed that Algae bio-crude production is economically, socially and environmentally more sustainable as compared to the production of crude oil. Their study results demonstrated that the process of the algae bio-crude production is carbon free; therefore, improving the conversion process of biofuel could reduce the costs of energy to a larger extent. The second case study was about the emissions inventory in Taiwan, whereby integrated hybrid input-output LCA was utilised to disaggregate the sector for generating electrical power into gas, hydro, nuclear, oil as well as coal. Liu et al. (2012, p.132) observed that sub-sectors that depend on fossil fuels had high levels of CO2 emissions. The last case study was about COLTAN’s global supply chains. In this hybrid LCA case study, Moran et al. (2015, p.7) demonstrate how it is beneficial to utilise the hybrid LCA approaches in studying as well as measuring the negative social impact related to production inputs. The Hybrid LCA approach according to Moran et al. (2015) is suitable for illuminating the global supply chains and offers a reliable framework in through which sources of data could be organised. Aside from connecting producers with the customers, the Hybrid LCA approach also connects the consumers to problems experienced at the local level. In the last lecture, we focussed on the social and socio-economic LCA (S-LCA), which was defined as the impact assessment method used to examine the products’ socio‐economic as well as social aspects and their possible impacts during their lifecycle. This approach is associated with a number of limitations; for instance, it is induced through the technique’s novelty and is caused as a result of difficulty associated with data availability. S-LCA is associated with the utilisation of methodologies, qualitative data, as well as indicators. Furthermore, it is associated with causal chain reasons ignorance. Still, S-LCA offers information regarding social as well as social-economic aspects for making decisions and facilitates dialogue regarding these aspects. References Curran, M.A., 2006. Life Cycle Assessment: Principles and Practice. Working Paper. Reston, VA: Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC). Finkbeiner, M., Inaba, A., TanKim, R. & Klüppel, C.-J., 2006. The New International Standards for Life Cycle Assessment: ISO 14040 and ISO 14044. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, vol. 11, no. 2, pp.80–85. Finkbeiner, M., Schau, E.M., Lehmann, A. & Traverso, M., 2010. Towards Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment. Sustainability, vol. 2, pp.3309-22. Liu, C.-H., Lenzen, M. & Murray, J., 2012. disaggregated emissions inventory for Taiwan with uses in hybrid input-output life cycle analysis (IO-LCA). Natural Resources Forum, vol. 36, pp.123–41. Malik, A., Lenzen, M., Ralph, P.J. & Tamburic, B., 2015. Hybrid life-cycle assessment of algal biofuel production. Bioresource Technology, vol. 184, pp.436–43. Moran, D. et al., 2015. Global Supply Chains of Coltan: A Hybrid Life Cycle Assessment Study Using a Social Indicator. Journal of Industrial Ecology, vol. 19, no. 3, pp.357–365. Williams, A.S., 2009. Life Cycle Analysis: A Step by Step Approach. Technical Report. Champaign, IL: Illinois Sustainable Technology Cent. Read More

The collection of primary data focuses on gathering own data for certain system boundary’s processes while secondary data collection involves input-output databases, sources of literature as well as LCA databases. The other steps include validation of data, data Allocation, and associating data with the unit process and functional unit, and the last step is data aggregation. While still focussing on process life cycle assessment, the focus of the fifth lecture was on the reasons for undertaking LCIA.

Basically, LCIA focuses on the translation of inventory results into data regarding the effects of resources, environments, and/or humans. The phases of LCIA include: (i) classification, which involves the assignment of results to sets of impacts; for instance, Methane and Carbon dioxide have been assigned to climate change. (ii) Characterisation, which involves calculating the category indicator results. The calculation of indicator values happens after the impact categories have been identified.

The objective of characterisation is to transform quantitatively the flows of inventory into common units in order to facilitate comparison. (iii) LCIA profile, which involves profiling the results achieved from the previous step. (iv) Normalisation involves normalising the indicator results with the objective of determining all the indicators results’ magnitude of the product system being studied. (v) Grouping is conducted on the indicator results after normalisation. Generally involves sorting as well as ranking. (v) Weighting involves using numerical factors to convert the category indicator results.

The Sixth lecture focused on life cycle interpretation, which is a phase where the inventory analysis findings together with those of impact assessment are integrated. According to ISO14040, reporting of LCA results should be accurate, fair, and complete. Therefore, in this phase, critical review is very important since it promotes not just scientific validity, but also transparency and consistency of the work. Besides that, evaluation is performed to check consistency, completeness, and sensitivity.

In lecture seven, the focus was boundary selection as well as truncation errors, wherein boundary selection was described as an important of all LCA’s processes. it was mentioned that the process LCA has a number of disadvantages such as truncation error, complexity, accessibility of suitable and reliable data for the inventories, and the combination of various indicators in the inventory in addition to their problematic conversion into impacts. With the view to Input-Output Analysis, it was mentioned that the analysis offers a snap-shot of the multifaceted economic linkages and is suitable for linkage and reporting analysis.

In general, IOA connotes the incorporation of other production factors like employment, energy and emissions of carbon dioxide. The Efootprint as indicated in lecture eight can be calculated using the formula shown below: Efootprint = q (I – A) - 1 y Where, q = pollution coefficients matrix I = identity matrix A = matrix of technology coefficients (I – A) - 1 = Leontief inverse y = the products’ final demand IOA is beneficial because it solves the problem of system boundary, can be performed faster, the data requirements are modest and extremely appropriate for suitable for top-down carbon footprint.

In addition, IOA is suitable for 'hot-spots' analysis. Still, it has some shortcomings; for instance, modelling is normally static as well as retrospective, has aggregation errors, the proportionality between physical flows and financial flows is assumed. The 9th and 10th lectures focussed on the ISA Triple Bottom Line (TBL) tool, which is a software tool designed with the objective of creating comprehensive sustainability reports through inputting the revenue and expenditure accounts of the organisation.

The ISA TBL tool can be used to report across different economic, social and environmental indicators selected from a collection of predefined indicators.

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