Consequential life cycle assessment: a review

Abstract

Purpose Over the past two decades, consequential life cycle assessment (CLCA) has emerged as a modeling approach for capturing environmental impacts of product systems beyond physical relationships accounted for in attributional LCA (ALCA). Put simply, CLCA represents the convergence of LCA and economic modeling approaches. Method In this study, a systematic literature review of CLCA is performed. Results While initial efforts to integrate the two modeling methods relied on simple partial equilibrium (PE) modeling and a heuristic approach to determining affected technologies, more recent techniques incorporate sophisticated economic models for this purpose. In the last 3 years, Multi-Market, Multi-Regional PE Models and Computable General Equilibrium models have been used. Moreover, the incorporation of other economic notions into CLCA, such as rebound effects and experience curves, has been the focus of later research. Since economic modeling can play a prominent role in national policy-making and strategic/corporate environmental planning, developing the capacity to operate LCA concurrent to, or integrated with, these models is of growing importance. Conclusions This paper outlines the historical development of such efforts in CLCA, discusses key methodological advancements, and characterizes previous literature on the topic. Based on this review, we provide an outlook for further research in CLCA.

Fully integrated modelling for sustainability assessment of resource recovery from waste

“…A consequential LCA approach is sometimes used to address this, which typically involves assessing the consequences of changes in the foreground system on the background system using partial-or general-equilibrium models to estimate market-2 Technical value here refers to a qualitative description of a material to fulfil a particular role given its physical and/or chemical characteristics and/or related regulations. mediated consequences of model LCA outputs (Earles and Halog, 2011). Although such approaches potentially provide more holistic insights, we argue-as others have (Pelletier and Tyedmers, 2011)-that relying on market-mechanisms as the sole mediator is insufficient to fully account for such consequences in contexts of complex value assessments of RRfW.…”

Life Cycle Inventory Analysis of Recycling: Mathematical and Graphical Frameworks

“…Attributional LCA only accounts for physical flows involved in the product life cycle, whereas consequential LCA, on the other hand, aims to describe how physical flows can change as a consequence of an increase or decrease in demand for the product system under study [18]. Consequential methodology implies that allocation is avoided by means of system expansion, which describes how multi-functional processes including open-loop recycling affect processes outside the life cycle originally investigated [19].…”

Design of Sustainable Biofuel Processes and Supply Chains: Challenges and Opportunities

“…However, researchers have argued that it is not fully possible to draw conclusions on future changes by using only ALCA [123,124]. In contrast, consequential LCA (CLCA) methodology, aims to explain how the physical flows to and from the technosphere may change in response to a change in the life cycle of the product or service [125]. CLCAs attempt to consider a much broader system boundary.…”