Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)
From Swikipedia
Introduction
Life Cycle Assessment is an objective process to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product, process, or activity by identifying energy and materials used and wastes released to the environment, and to evaluate and implement opportunities to affect environmental improvements.
Brief Description
What is a Life Cycle Analysis?
Taking as an example the case of a manufactured product, an LCA involves making detailed measurements during the manufacture of the product, from the mining of the raw materials used in its production and distribution, through to its use, possible re-use or recycling, and its eventual disposal.
LCAs enable a manufacturer to quantify how much energy and raw materials are used, and how much solid, liquid and gaseous waste is generated, at each stage of the product's life.
Such a study would normally ignore second generation impacts, such as the energy required to fire the bricks used to build the kilns used to manufacture the raw material.
However, deciding which is the 'cradle' and which the 'grave' for such studies has been one of the points of contention in the relatively new science of LCAs, and in order for LCAs to have value there must be standardization of methodologies, and consensus as to where to set the limits. Much of the focus worldwide to date has been on agreeing the methods and boundaries to be used when making such analysis, and it seems that agreement may have now been reached.
While carrying out an LCA is a lengthy and very detailed exercise, the data collection stage is - in theory at least - relatively uncomplicated, provided the boundary of the study has been clearly defined, the methodology is rigorously applied, and reliable, high-quality data is available. Those of course are fairly large provisos.
Why perform LCAs?
LCAs might be conducted by an industry sector to enable it to identify areas where improvements can be made, in environmental terms. Alternatively the LCA may be intended to provide environmental data for the public or for government. In recent years, a number of major companies have cited LCAs in their marketing and advertising, to support claims that their products are 'environmentally friendly' or even 'environmentally superior' to those of their rivals. Many of these claims have been successfully challenged by environmental groups.
All products have some impact on the environment. Since some products use more resources, cause more pollution or generate more waste than others, the aim is to identify those which are most harmful.
Even for those products whose environmental burdens are relatively low, the LCA should help to identify those stages in production processes and in use which cause or have the potential to cause pollution, and those which have a heavy material or energy demand.
Breaking down the manufacturing process into such fine detail can also be an aid to identifying the use of scarce resources, showing where a more sustainable product could be substituted.
LCA uses and tools
Based on a survey of LCA practitioners carried out in 2006 most life cycle assessments are carried out with dedicated software packages. 58% of respondents used GaBi Software, developed by PE International, 31% used SimaPro developed by PRé Consultants, and 11% a series of other tools. According to the same survey, LCA is mostly used to support business strategy (18%) and R&D (18%), as input to product or process design (15%), in education (13%) and for labeling or product declarations (11%).
LCA in waste management
LCA has begun to be used to evaluate a city or region's future waste management options. The LCA, or environmental assessment, covers the environmental and resource impacts of alternative disposal processes, as well as those other processes which are affected by disposal strategies such as different types of collection schemes for recyclables, changed transport patterns and so on.
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