From Consequential life Cycle Assesment (w2009) Flashcards
What does the attributional approach strive to do?
The attributional LCA looks at one product in isolation and strives to isolate the primary service from the secondary services arising in the system in order to identify the environmental impacts from the system which can be attributed to the primary service.
How does attributional LCA deal with joint-processes?
With the aim isolate the studied primary service, the attributional LCA allocates inputs to and outputs from joints processes to the primary service by some method of dividing them among all the products arising from the joint processes.
Which allocation method is most widely used?
Economic allocation (either sales prices or profit margin)
What is SETAC?
The scientific Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). First Code of Conduct was developed by members of this scientific society (SETAC, 1993).
LCA can be applied at two levels which?
Company-level and society-level
Who is the key-audience of an LCA?
The decision makers.
When modelling the product system(s) by the consequential approach, what question is asked?
What is the response to a change in demand/supply of the product, i.e. which processes in the system respond to a change in demand by increasing or decreasing their production volume?
When is system expansion prefered over allocation?
Always, whenever it is possible to identify the replaced products and their product systems.
When is a process part of the product system?
A process is part of the product system of a product if it responds to a change in demand of this product by an equivalent change in supply, i.e. by a change in its production volume.
What is the definition of marginal supply?
Marginal supply = the response to a marginal change in demand on the market in question.
What are the 4 steps in the guide on system modelling by the consequential approach?
- Draw the demand change and the response to it from the supply side.
- Draw markets whenever the demand is met by supply from a general market/ an exchange, be it national, regional or international/global.
- Draw multiple suppliers to these markets and realise that they do not respond to demand changes in proportion to their market share.
- Identify, therefore, the market response to the change in demand, typically the marginal supply on this market
The consequential system model shall strive to:
1) identify which suppliers will respond and model these or 2) average of all suppliers to the market.
Always strive to identify the suppliers which will respond and model these.
