Regionalized Life Cycle Assessment: Computational Methodology and Application to Inventory Databases

Mutel, Christopher; Hellweg, Stefanie

doi:10.1021/es803002j

Cited by 85 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(50 reference statements)

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“…Also potential consequences of the implementation of a large-scale hydrogen production and distribution network as well as all kinds of rebound effects [81][82][83][84] need to be left for future work based on consequential LCA [85][86][87]. Finally, the issue of location-specific quantification of human health impacts due to pollutant emissions could not be dealt with due to limitations in the current LCIA methodology [88][89][90]. Here we refer to the fact that potential benefits of shifting environmental burdens caused by passenger vehicles from urban city centers to more remote mining locations, power and hydrogen generation sites could not be quantified.…”

Section: Benchmarking and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The environmental performance of current and future passenger vehicles: Life cycle assessment based on a novel scenario analysis framework

et al. 2015

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Section: Benchmarking and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The environmental performance of current and future passenger vehicles: Life cycle assessment based on a novel scenario analysis framework

et al. 2015

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“…In addition, spatialised LCAs require systematic ways to handle the large amount of data in order to be a feasible approach for LCA practitioners, but methods to facilitate the application of regionalised impact assessment have been demonstrated (e.g. Mutel and Hellweg 2009;Mutel et al 2012). There are also cases where CFs for a larger region, such as country or global scale, would be more suitable than regional CFs, e.g.…”

Section: Applications and Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatially differentiated midpoint indicator for marine eutrophication of waterborne emissions in Sweden

Henryson

Hansson

Sundberg

2017

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose In life cycle assessment (LCA), eutrophication is commonly assessed using site-generic characterisation factors, despite being a site-dependent environmental impact. The purpose of this study was to improve the environmental relevance of marine eutrophication impact assessment in LCA, particularly regarding the impact assessment of waterborne nutrient emissions from Swedish agriculture. Methods Characterisation factors were derived using sitedependent data on nutrient transport for all agricultural soils in Sweden, divided into 968 catchment areas, and considering the Baltic Sea, the receiving marine compartment, as both nitrogen-and phosphorus-limited. These new characterisation factors were then applied to waterborne nutrient emissions from typical grass ley and spring barley cultivation in all catchments.Results and discussion The site-dependent marine eutrophication characterisation factors obtained for nutrient leaching from soils varied between 0.056 and 0.986 kg N eq /kg N and between 0 and 7.23 kg N eq /kg P among sites in Sweden. On applying the new characterisation factors to spring barley and grass ley cultivation at different sites in Sweden, the total marine eutrophication impact from waterborne nutrient emissions for these crops varied by up to two orders of magnitude between sites. This variation shows that site plays an important role in determining the actual impact of an emission, which means that site-dependent impact assessment could provide valuable information to life cycle assessments and increase the relevance of LCA as a tool for assessment of product-related eutrophication impacts. Conclusions Characterisation factors for marine eutrophication impact assessment at high spatial resolution, considering both the site-dependent fate of eutrophying compounds and specific nutrient limitations in the recipient waterbody, were developed for waterborne nutrient emissions from agriculture in Sweden. Application of the characterisation factors revealed variations in calculated impacts between sites in Sweden, highlighting the importance of spatial differentiation of characterisation modelling within the scale of the impact.

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“…It could be continent or country or archetype or specific geographical area. One way to spatialise the inventory is to regionalise it and to apply the geographical validity area of a process to each of its elementary flows [14]. Therefore, the detail level would be the same as for inventory regionalisation.…”

Section: Regionalisation Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ready-to-use and advanced methodologies to prioritise the regionalisation effort in LCA

Patouillard

Bulle²,

Margni

2016

Matériaux & Techniques

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-The spatial dimension is an important aspect in life cycle assessment (LCA). Indeed life cycle processes, and therefore also elementary flows, are most likely to be geographically scattered due to global supply chains. The environmental impacts related to an elementary flow can be different across the globe depending on the spatial variability of ecosystem sensitivity. Integrating spatial dimension seems to be a promising way to increase LCA results' reliability by reducing spatial uncertainties. LCA regionalisation refers to the integration of the spatial variability that really exists to improve result representativeness and reduce spatial uncertainties. As regionalisation requires additional effort for LCA practitioners, it is necessary to ensure the interest of such an effort and to prioritise it. This work proposes two methodologies to prioritise the regionalisation effort in LCA depending on the decision context and the type of study. They allow the selection of impacts, processes and regionalisation aspects that LCA practitioners need to focus on. The first one is a ready-to-use methodology and the second one involves more advanced tools based on spatial uncertainty analysis. The proposed methodologies are stepwise. The ready-to-use methodology involves tools that are already used by LCA practitioners and is based on impact contribution analysis. Regarding the advanced methodology, most relevant impact categories and processes to be further investigated for regionalisation are selected according to their impact contribution and their uncertainty level by using Monte Carlo simulation and regression analysis. The regionalisation effort is estimated depending on the confidence level required for the case study. The relevance and limits of each methodologies are investigated. Results underline the importance to take into account both impact and uncertainty contributions to select processes that need to be regionalised. The proposed methodologies highlight the need to focus on the goal and scope at the early stages of a study in order to clearly identify the intended audience and its requirements regarding study quality. A dialogue with the decision maker during the study would be beneficial. Those approaches can be relevant for other types of uncertainty but should be adapted.

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Regionalized Life Cycle Assessment: Computational Methodology and Application to Inventory Databases

Cited by 85 publications

References 44 publications

The environmental performance of current and future passenger vehicles: Life cycle assessment based on a novel scenario analysis framework

The environmental performance of current and future passenger vehicles: Life cycle assessment based on a novel scenario analysis framework

Spatially differentiated midpoint indicator for marine eutrophication of waterborne emissions in Sweden

Ready-to-use and advanced methodologies to prioritise the regionalisation effort in LCA

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