Critical Analysis of the Mathematical Relationships and Comprehensiveness of Life Cycle Impact Assessment Approaches
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- 作者：Jane C. Bare and Thomas P. Gloria
- 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology
- 出版年：2006
- 出版时间：February 15, 2006
- 年：2006
- 卷：40
- 期：4
- 页码：1104 - 1113
- 全文大小：165K
- 年卷期：v.40,no.4(February 15, 2006)
- ISSN：1520-5851
文摘
The impact assessment phase of Life Cycle Assessment(LCA) has received much criticism due to lack of consistency.While the ISO standards for LCA did make great stridesin advancing the consensus in this area, ISO is not prescriptive,but has left much room for innovation and thereforeinconsistency. To address this lack of consistency, thereis currently an effort underway to provide a conceptualframework for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) and arecommended practice to include a list of impactcategories, category indicators, and underlying methodologies.This is an enormous undertaking, especially in light ofthe current fundamental lack of consensus of the basicelements to be included in a LCIA (e.g., impact categories,impacts, and areas of protection). ISO 14042 requiresselection of impact categories that "reflect a comprehensiveset of environmental issues" related to the system beingstudied, especially for "comparative assertions" that involvepublic marketing claims. To be comprehensive, it isnecessary to have a listing of impacts that "could" beincluded within the LCIA before entering into discussionsof impacts that "should" be included. In addition toproviding a critical analysis of existing and emergingimpact assessment approaches, this paper will formulatea structured representation that allows more informedselection of approaches. The definitions and relationshipsbetween midpoint, endpoint, damage, and areas ofprotection will be presented in greater detail, along withthe equations that are common to many of the approaches.Finally, a discussion of the advantages and disadvantagesof displaying results at various stages in the environmentalmodels will be presented in great detail.