A strategic research programme for life cycle assessment

Wrisberg, Nicoline; Haes, Helias A. Udo de; Clift, Roland; Frischknecht, Rolf; Grisel, Laurent; Hofstetter, Patrick; Jensen, Anne; Lindfors, Lars-Gunnar; Schmidt-Bleek, Friedrich; Stiller, Hartmut

doi:10.1007/bf02978762

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Much has been done in the past decade to enhance the scientific status and credibility of the LCA process. A general need to involve stakeholders in the LCA process has been identified (e.g., SPOLD 1995; Wrisberg et al 1997;Jensen et al 1997). However, the current study points out a number of quite specific challenges for the future.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Institutionalization of Life‐Cycle Thinking in the Everyday Discourse of Market Actors

Heiskanen¹

2000

J of Industrial Ecology

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Summary The widespread popularity of life‐cycle assessment (LCA) is difficult to understand from the point of view of instrumental decision making by economic agents. Ehrenfeld has argued, in a 1997 issue of this journal, that it is the world‐shaping potential of LCA that is more important than its use as a decision‐making tool. The present study attempts to explore the institutionalization of this “LCA world view” among ordinary market actors. This is important because environmental policy relies increasingly on market‐based initiatives. Cognitive and normative assumptions in authoritative LCA documents are examined as empirical data and compared with data from focus group interviews concerning products and the environment with “ordinary” manufacturers, retailers, and consumers in Finland. These assumptions are (1) the “cradle‐to‐grave” approach, (2) the view that all products have an environmental impact and can be improved, (3) the relativity of environmental merit, and (4) the way responsibility for environmental burdens is attributed. Relevant affinities, but also differences, are identified. It is argued that life‐cycle thinking is not primarily instrumental, but rather is gaining a degree of intrinsic value. The study attempts to establish a broader institutional context in which the popularity of LCA can be understood. From the point of view of this broader context, some future challenges for the development of LCA and life‐cycle thinking are suggested.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Institutionalization of Life‐Cycle Thinking in the Everyday Discourse of Market Actors

Heiskanen¹

2000

J of Industrial Ecology

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“…In addition to the above-mentioned analysis of uncertainty and variability in product assessments, other structural developments are necessary. The following developments focus on more general aspects in LCAs, such as (1) the reduction of model uncertainties in the inventory analysis through use of non-linear, suggested by Wrisberg et al (1997); (2) the reduction of model uncertainty in the characterisation phase, through use of multi-media modelling (Guinée et al, 1996a;Wegener Sleeswijk and Heijungs, 1996); (3) the operationalisation of parameter uncertainty and, if applicable, variability between objects in the environmental models which are used to compute characterisation factors; (4) the standardisation of the weighting procedure to guide uncertainty due to choices (Lindeijer, 1996); and (5) the operationalisation of spatial variability in inventories and characterisation factors (Potting et al, 1997). Co-operation with specialists of other scientific disciplines will facilitate the implementation of these improvement options.…”

Section: Variability Between Sources and Objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty and variability in environmental life-cycle assessment

Huijbregts

2002

Int J LCA

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General introductionIncreased rates of resource depletion, land use, solid waste generation and emissions of pollutants became issues of broad public concern in the beginning of the seventies (Meadows et al., 1972). Unfortunately, most of these problems are still with us today, and some of them have increased substantially (World Resources Institute, 1996). One way to decrease the environmental pressure of human activities is the environmentally improvement of production processes (Reijnders, 1996). In this respect, an important question to be answered is 'how exactly can we measure the environmentally improvement of production processes?' Environmental life-cycle assessment (LCA) aims to answer that question. The first section of this chapter provides an overview of the LCA framework. Although the framework itself is well-established, the application of the framework is in many aspects problematic. A brief overview of the problems associated with the actual implementation of the framework is described in second paragraph. Finally, the aim and the structure of the present thesis is outlined in the third paragraph. § 1.1 Environmental life cycle assessment Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool for the assessment of the environmental impact of product systems (Heijungs et al. 1992). It considers the full life cycle of a product from resource extraction to waste disposal. LCA is generally divided into four phases: goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation (Figure 1.1; ISO, 1997a).In the goal and scope definition, the aim and the subject of an LCA study are determined and a 'functional unit' is defined. An example of a functional unit is 'the consumption of 100 kg apples' with, for instance, the aim to compare the environmental impacts of different agricultural production processes of apples. In the inventory analysis, for each of the product systems considered data are gathered for all the relevant processes involved in the life cycle. A product system can be considered as a combination of processes needed for the functioning of a product or service. The outcome of the inventory analysis is a list of all extractions of resources and emissions of substances caused by the functional unit for every product system considered, generally disregarding place and time of the extractions and releases. The matrix method can be used to perform the inventory analysis (Heijungs, 1996(Heijungs, , 1997 where i is the vector of environmental interventions, H is the environmental intervention matrix, representing the extractions of resources and emissions of substances per unit process, G is the technology matrix representing the inter-process flows needed for the functioning of the product system, and u is the external supply vector, related to the functional unit. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) aims to improve the understanding of the inventory result. Firstly, it is determined which extractions and emissions contribute to which impact categories. An impact category can...

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“…LCA is still being used to deflect envirormiental concerns and to legitimate the status quo (Baumann 2000;Frankl et al 2000;Heiskanen 2000) and there is little evidence of LCA being integrated throughout organisations (Heiskanen 2000). Most research on LCA to date has focused upon the development and improvement of the methodology and integrating LCA with diverging interest areas (Frankl et al 2000) and not upon the application of LCA, and testing it in case studies (Wrisberg et al 1997;Heiskanen 2000). According to researchers Frankl et al (2000) and Baumann (2000), the focus of LCA should be on using LCA to learn rather than be used to support a specific decision.…”

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confidence: 99%

Environmental life cycle costs in the Australian food packaging supply chain

James¹

2003

Social and Environmental Accountability Journal

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There is increasing evidence that external and internal pressures are being placed upon companies to acknowledge, characterise and analyse environmental issues, impacts and costs. It has been argued that companies will increasingly be faced with responsibilities extending outside the factory gate to point of sale and beyond. Companies will need to adopt a life cycle perspective into the decisionmaking framework, to support managements' decisions regarding the environmental impacts and costs of activities and products.

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A strategic research programme for life cycle assessment

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Institutionalization of Life‐Cycle Thinking in the Everyday Discourse of Market Actors

Institutionalization of Life‐Cycle Thinking in the Everyday Discourse of Market Actors

Uncertainty and variability in environmental life-cycle assessment

Environmental life cycle costs in the Australian food packaging supply chain

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