Life Cycle Assessment

A Life Cycle Assessment ( LCA, German life-cycle analysis, also known as life cycle assessment ) is a systematic analysis of environmental effects of products during their entire life cycle (from cradle to grave, from the cradle to the grave ') or up to a certain time of processing ( from cradle to factory gate, from the cradle to factory gate ').

For the analysis includes all environmental impacts during the production, use phase and disposal of the product, and the associated upstream and downstream processes ( eg production of raw materials and supplies ). The environmental effects you count all environment-related withdrawals from the environment (eg ores, crude oil) and emissions into the environment (eg waste, carbon dioxide emissions). The concept of balance is used in the LCA in terms of a comparison, it is not to be confused with the balance within the accounting department.

Distinction

Generally, a distinction is made ​​between:

• A life cycle assessment which takes into account the environmental aspect of an individual product;
• A comparative life cycle assessment, which pursues a juxtaposition of several products, as well as
• A holistic accounting, economic, technical and / or social aspects involving.

In addition to the life cycle assessment ( product-related life cycle assessment, life cycle assessment ) can serve a material flow analysis the determination of additional material and energy balances: Operating environmental accounting and life cycle assessment process. These differ from the LCA in that they have a reference period (often called financial year ) and that they do not is based on the principle of causation ( Which material and energy flows caused the product over its entire life? ). The company's environmental balance sheet is, for example, often in environmental and sustainability reports of companies.

With the standard ISO 14040, the term LCA is indeed only applicable to product-specific LCAs. However, this standard "Product " is defined as "any goods or services" and expressly includes things like transportation, the repair of a vehicle or the provision of information in the context of knowledge transfer. Thus, the methodology of life cycle for the (ecological ) study of procedures and processes is applicable and is also used for this.

In the business environment, the ecological balance of the ecology -oriented planning tools of management accounting can be counted. Of greater importance, however, are found in the (environmental) policy and legislation.

Purpose

The common goal of the various corporate life cycle assessment methods is to check the operational events on the possible ecological risks and vulnerabilities and systematically identify optimization potentials. The starting point is the consideration that the annual input ( in kilograms and kilowatt hour), which enters into the company, in terms of quantity must match the output and the stock changes. Important for this equation is mainly that the inputs, outputs and stock changes are fully measured ( ie, for example, including the added flowing rain water, evaporation, leakage, of the interim storage or the like. ). Building on this life cycle, the respective input and output materials are analyzed with respect to their effects on the environment, and finally the total number of substances evaluated and their effects. The creation of life cycle inventories is also called substance flow analysis.

Construction

A full life cycle assessment according to ISO 14040 consists of the following elements:

• Definition of goal and scope,
• Life Cycle,
• Impact assessment and
• Analysis.

On 30 June 2006, the second edition of ISO 14040 and the new ISO 14044 was published. The latter summarizes the existing individual standards IS0 14041-14043 together. The ISO 14044 provides, together with the ISO 14040 standard for an ISO -compliant life cycle assessment dar. aim of this revision of the standard series was a simplification by merging and thereby an improved readability. The content remained largely unchanged.

In the definition of goal and scope is first determined what the LCA is to be used. This setting affects all other decisions and is therefore a very important step in an LCA, which is often more or less neglected. Thereafter, benefits and functions of the product are determined and defined the basic life cycle of a product, beginning with the extraction of raw materials and ending with the corresponding disposal. In addition, interactions are taken into account with other substances, assumptions and constraints defined, and the preliminary boundaries of the study set (setting of cut-off criteria ). Another important point is the definition of so-called functional unit. This means the product specific size, on which afterwards the environmental effects are related ( eg, a refrigerator, 1000 kWh of electrical energy, etc.)

In the subsequent LCI quantitative information on the product life just entered be made. For this purpose, the use of resources ( input information, inputs) are compared with the benefits (functional unit ) or the correlated therewith emissions ( outputs, outputs ). The LCI is a purely descriptive ( descriptive ) model without any judgment itself. However, each life cycle involves implicit ratings that are derived from the system boundaries, cut-off criteria and constraints previously defined.

The Impact Assessment is then shares the results of a life cycle in accordance with scientifically based qualitative aspects into different impact categories and example shows the relevance of different emissions of the greenhouse effect or the formation of the ozone hole. The result of the impact assessment are a number ( usually 5-10) quantitative environmental impacts caused by a product ( eg contribution to the greenhouse effect, acid rain, the ozone hole, etc.). This step involves (usually implicitly ) an assessment, partly due to the selection of impact categories per se and the other by the choice of emissions that are attributed to a certain impact category or not. The modeling of the contribution of an issue to an impact category is associated with value judgments. In the course of the impact assessment can optionally by the so-called normalization, in which the environmental impact on a so-called population equivalent (ie environmental impact relative to 1, 100 or 1000 people) are scaled. This last step simplifies the presentation of results.

In the evaluation of the result of important parameters (such as individual life cycle stages or impact categories ) are identified. Then follow consistency, completeness and sensitivity analysis. From the results, conclusions and recommendations are developed and written a report. The assessment is the most subjectively influenced parts of an evaluation, as here takes place a weighting of environmental impacts. Thus, for example, the question of whether the global warming potential is more important than the acidification potential, to be decided at most at the level of political and social.

Publish an LCA a critical review by an independent appraiser is in accordance with ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 always necessary.

From these aspects, it can be concluded that an LCA has great potential as a decision aid for producers and consumers. It is an informative and often crucial tool for assessing the environmental performance of products and, increasingly, even during or prior to product development. Restrictive but must also be said that the results of an LCA study, which was created with a specific purpose and therefore with a specific focus and a consequent modeling, can not be transferred to a different question readily. Examines eg whether an LCA are ecologically meaningful for a specific use of amorphous or crystalline photovoltaic cells, the result can not be generalized or transferred to a different situation. One problem is that the cells have different efficiencies and thus a different area is needed for the same power output. This is crucial, as the cells are mounted, since the supporting structure makes a (relevant) contribution to the LCA results.

Software

In most cases, LCAs with the help of software to be created. The EU Joint Research Center has compiled a list.

Aggregation and assessment procedures

The DIN EN ISO 14040:2006 is written: " the LCA there is not just one method. Organizations can - depending on the intended application and the needs of the organization - implement LCA [ ... ] flexible ". The known methods are:

• ABC analysis
• CML method
• Greenhouse gas balance (including CO2 footprint or CO2 balance called )
• Eco-Indicator 99: expresses the entire environmental impact of a product or system into a single number, unit points [Pt ]. Impact categories are normalized and weighted differently.
• Environmental Priority System (damage cost approach)
• Critical volumes
• Accumulated energy expenditure
• MIPS
• Sustainable Process Index (SPI )
• UBA impact indicators
• Environmental impact points, see method of ecological scarcity
• Verbal review
• Avoidance cost approach
• Virtual water

The following table systematizes the best known evaluation methods for creating a life cycle assessment with regard to their application time point in the life cycle assessment, the monetary or non -monetary consideration, the dimension of the evaluation variable and the outcome of the proceedings.

The dimension reflects the number of companies included in the evaluation indicators. Procedures that relate to only a code in the results (eg CO2 emissions ) are referred to as " one-dimensional ". In contrast to methods in which several indicators the result form, characterized as " multi-dimensional ".

The observation provides information on the monetary or non - monetary presentation of the results of an evaluation procedure.

The quantification is an expression for the scaling of the results for each method. Here are ordinal (qualitative assessment procedure) or Metric (quantitative assessment method ) scaled results, the distinguishing feature. Of the methods presented here are solely the ABC analysis and verbal review of the qualitative, all others to the quantitative assessment procedures.

As part of the selection of an evaluation procedure in the context of a life cycle assessment, it is considered useful to consider methods of assessment are available. Evaluation criteria include traceability, the practicality, the completeness and the transferability of the method. Other criteria may be the separation of fact and value level and the values ​​of pluralism.

Criticism

On the occasion of a comparison of the industry association of the beverage can maker ( BCME ) between beverage cans and returnable bottles ensued a conflict in which the online magazine klimaretter.info in the report " can industry: The art of trickery " manipulations of the LCA criticized the industry association would have a life cycle assessment at ordered IFEU and the ecological balance as shortcomings (low circulation figures for returnable bottles manipulated " allocation rules ") (the methodology of how the energy consumption for the production of materials is divided into pre-and Nachprodukte ). Because of the various misinterpretations of the LCA published the Ifeu Institute in consequence a counter notification to the press release of the industry association of the beverage can makers ' summary handout to the discussion on one-way and refillable beverage containers " to interpret their own life cycle in more detail. More about it in soda can # ecological aspects.