Environmental assessments Flashcards
Define environmental impact assessment
- used to describe the procedure that ensures that the environmental implications of decisions are taken into account before the decision are made.
What is meant by the statement “its all about the life cycle”?
- the impact of products and services on the environment= key element in decision making process
- the whole lifecycle of the product or service are considered (including all impacts of a product over its entire life cycle)
What is Life cycle?
- the complete set of activities associated with the production and consumption of a product or service
- includes raw material, extraction through transport, manufacturing and use all the way to the endow life of the product or service.
What are the variants of life cycle?
- Cradle-to-Grave: from resource extraction to the use phase and disposal phase.
- Cradle-to-Gate: partial LCA from resource extraction to the factor gate before the product is transported to the consumer-
- Cradle-to-Cradle: an extension of the cradle-to-grace in which the end-of-life of a product becomes a resource input into another supply chain thus creating a closed-loop or circular production system. (most complete one)
- Well-to-wheel: this is a LCA variant for transportation fuel and consisting of extraction of the fuel to the point of fuelling the vehicle.
Define life cycle assessment (LCA)?
A tool for assessing the environmental impacts of a product or service from cradle to grave.
- enables the estimation of the cumulative impact resulting from all stages in the product or service life cycle.
inputs (resources -> PLC (compile impacts along supply chain) = Outputs: waste, emissions to: air, water, land.
What are the drivers of LCA? (4 main things)
- Consumer
- industries
- Need for CSR
- green supply chain regulates
What is the importance of LCA?
Can be used to design a product or a process (resource orientated view)
- Decision making:
- product design
- process design
- purchasing
- policy- making - Communication:
- eco-labeling
- product declarations
- benchmarking - Learning/exploration: identify hot spots, that is pinpoint places where process improvements can yield environmental benefits.
What is the general framework and guidelines of LCA?
- developed by the international standard organisation (ISO)
- Based ISO 14000 series,
- the phases are interdependent of each other (each stage informs others)
general framework: interpretation through each stage, output of one feeds into the other.
- Goal and scope defintion: e.g.
- analyse impact of two different products.
- identify the functional unit (fair comparison)
- system boundary: what should be included within the system (inputs such as materials used in production)need process map for this. - Inventory analysis: (most challenging part)
- collection of data for all the inputs included. (energy and raw material, co-product, waste emissions, products) LCI databases have been developed (Ecoinvent) important for robustness and accuracy of assessment. - Impact assessment:
- calculate impacts of what you want to achieve, numerous indicators of impact (environment, gas emissions, humans)
- need to choose impact category
- turn intensity into an impact(environment) - LCA interpretation:
- review data quality (accuracy of numbers, support of goal and scope) - be careful
- make recommendation
issues with life cycle inventory? (3 things)
- is it possible for other individual to re-produce what you have done?
- is it time sensitive due to technological changes, which changes production process and impacts?
- values might also change
What are the critical assumptions about the LCA framework/process? (4 different assumptions)
- Location: is the data used, local, regional or worldwide?
- Transport mechanism: are materials being transported by truck, ship, rail air?
- Equipment efficiency: is the data based on state-of-the-art equipment or average performing equipment?
- Levels of aggregation of data
