Chapter 6 - Life Cycle Assessment Flashcards
What are life cycle assessments?
The process of evaluating the effects of a product on the environment and other impacts over its life cycle.
Name the part of a materials life cycle that are assessed during a LSA.
Extraction, manufacturing, processing, transportation, distribution, use, re-use, maintenance, recycling and final disposal.
What is a carbon footprint?
A life cycle assessment that has global warming as the only environmental impact category.
What are the 4 system boundaries for an LCA and explain them?
Cradle to Gate - Raw material to manufacturing.
Cradle to Laid/Made - Raw material to construction.
Cradle to Grave - Raw material to demolition.
Cradle to Cradle - raw material to to reuse as a secondary raw material or product in another system.
What are the inputs and outputs of an LCA?
Inputs - materials used in the project.
Outputs - recycling, waste/emissions, material burning for energy use.
What is ISO14040?
A standard for life cycle assessement.
What is PAS2080
A standard for a practical approach to life cycle assessment.
What are LCAs used for?
To compare different products with the same function, to create assessment systems to make more sustainable decisions, benchmarking and target setting.
What is a hot spot of an LCA?
The area of the life cycle that stands out as causing the most impacts relative to its position in the life cycle.
What is a limitation to LCAs?
The impact assessment doesn’t have any comparison to environmental limits.
Give 3 environmental impact catagories and their measurements.
Any 3 from: climate change (MtCO2), transport pollution (ton*km), water disposal (tonnes), water extraction (litres).
What are the 3 scopes of emissions?
Direct emissions - from works/materials that you use directly on your project.
Indirect emisisons - results from an organisations activities but are actually emitted from sources own by someone else e.g. getting public transport.
3rd party emissions.
What are the steps to performing an LCA?
- Defining the scope and boundaries of the assessment (i.e., a material, assembly, or building).
- Creating an inventory of all the components (i.e., a bill of materials, site energy, deliveries).
- Assessing the environmental impacts, which are calculated by multiplying each material quantity or duration of an activity by a series of environmental impact factors (to find the CO2 equivalent).
- Interpreting the results, which are the environmental impact of the subject measured across a series of impact categories such as, for example, global warming potential.
What are product category rules?
A set of rules, requirements, and guidlines for developing environmental product declarations (EPD) for construction products or services. They are provided by european standards.
What are environmental product declarations?
A document which transparently communicates the environmental performace or impact of any product or material over its lifetime.
