ISO: 14040 Flashcards
What is the definition of an LCA?
Life Cycle Assessment - cover environmental impact over a products life
What are the key principles of an LCA?
- Quantative - figure to say whether a process is bad or not
- Assessment - grade a process or product on how good or bad it is.
- Compare - compare multiple products impacts
- Environmental - most LCA’s are environmental
- Product
- Life cycle
What are the benefits of an LCA?
- Identify the most impactful stage of a products life cycle
- Can be good for comparing product or transportation.
- Communication of environmental impact of product
- Find gaps in existing information available
What are the limitations of an LCA?
- Take a long time to complete
- Out of date data or resources
- Scope of LCA limited by time and data available
- Use stage is not an accurate representation of the actual use of the product
- Takes lots of resources to collect data for LCA
- Geographic causes. Water usage of factory in desert vs factory in wet area
What is the LCA time cost quality conundrum?
Data availability vs data cost vs data accuracy (all change with time)
What are the key stages of an LCA?
Goal and Scope
LCI: Inventory Analysis
LCIA: Impact Assessment
Interpretation
What are the variations of an LCA?
Cradle to grave - from manufacture to disposal
Cradle to gate - from manufacture to factory gate
Cradle to Cradle - Regenerative process
Well to Wheel - fuel efficiency for vehicles.
What are examples of impact categories in an LCA?
- Climate change
- Acidification
- Ozone Depletion
What is included in the goal of an LCA?
purpose & type of study
intended use
audience (public disclosure?)
What is included in the scope of an LCA?
- Product system, function and boundary
- Functional unit
- Data requirements, quality and type
- Assumptions, allocation and procedures
- Assessment method, impact categories
What is data specificity?
- the breadth of data sources
What is data granularity?
- Depth or detail of data
What are data Quality requirements?
Specify the type of data needed for the LCA
What is a functional unit?
Quantifies a product function.
What are the system boundary stages?
- raw material acquisition and energy
- Manufacturing, formulation and processing
- Packaging, transportation and sales
- Use, reuse and maintenance
- Recycle and waste management
What is the LCI stage for?
To build a data model of the inventory
What are the key principles of the LCI?
Quantitive
Replicable
Scientific
Comprehensive
Detailed
Peer reviewed
What is allocation in LCI?
Relating data to unit processes. Make 1kg of wood. Energy makes wood but sawdust too. Choose how much used energy will be allocated to the wood only and not the sawdust.
What is aggregation in an LCI?
Sums up the LCI.
Add up all same categories.
Analysis of all inputs and outputs
What are the 3 stages on an LCIA?
- Selection of impact categories, category indicators and characterization models
- Characterisation: Assignment of LCI results. - Specific compound waste and emission LCI data
- Classification: Calculation of category indicator results. - Environmental fate and potency of specific compounds.
What are impact categories and damage categories?
Impact categories = Midpoints (climate change, land use, water use)
Damage categories = Endpoints (human health, resource depletion, ecosystem quality)
What are the 2 objectives of the interpretation stage in an LCA?
- Analyse - analyse result and reach conclusions, explain limitations. Recommendations based on conclusions. Report must be produced.
- Present - present results in accordance with Goal and Scope.
What are the key steps of the interpretation phase?
Identification - of the significant issues from the LCIA
Evaluation - of results: sensitivity, consistency and completeness
Conclusions - recommendations and reporting of study
How do you determine significant issues in an LCIA?
Dominance analysis - which part of the lcia is the most dominant impact
Contribution analysis - identify which which load contributes most e.g C02
Anomaly assessment - unusual or surprising deviations from expected or normal results.
