Life Cycle Assessment Handbook A Guide for Environmentally Sustainable Products

The first book of its kind, theLife Cycle Assessment Handbook: A Guide for Environmentally Sustainable Products will become an invaluable resource for environmentally progressive manufacturers and suppliers, product and process designers, executives and managers, and government officials who want to learn about this essential component of environmental sustainability.

As the last several decades have seen a dramatic rise in the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in decision making, the interest in the life cycle concept as an environmental management and sustainability tool continues to grow. The LCA Handbook offers a look at the role that life cycle information, in the hands of companies, governments, and consumers, may have in improving the environmental performance of products and technologies. It concisely and clearly presents the various aspects of LCA in order to help the reader better understand the subject.

The content of the book was designed with a certain flow in mind. After a high-level overview to describe current views and state-of-the-practice of LCA, it presents chapters that address specific LCA methodological issues including creating life cycle inventory, life cycle impact assessment, and capturing eco-systems services. These are followed by example applications of LCA in the agri-food industry; sustainable supply chain management; solid waste management; mining and mineral extraction; forest products; buildings; product innovation; and sustainable chemistry and engineering.

The international success of the sustainability paradigm needs the participation of many stakeholders, including citizens, corporations, academia, and NGOs. The handbook links LCA and responsible decision making and how the life cycle concept is a critical element in environmental sustainability. It covers issues such as building capacity in developing countries and emerging economies so that they are more capable of harnessing the potential in LCA for sustainable development. Governments play a very important role with the leverage they have through procurement, regulation, international treaties, tax incentives, public outreach, and other policy tools. This compilation points to the clear trend for incorporating life cycle information into the design and development processes for products and policies, just as quality and safety concerns are now addressed throughout product design and development.

Preface xix

1 Environmental Life Cycle Assessment: Background and Perspective 1
Gjalt Huppes and Mary Ann Curran

Part 1: Methodology and Current State of LCA Practice

2 An Overview of the Life Cycle Assessment Method - Past, Present, and Future 15
Reinout Heijungs and Jeroen B. Guinee

3. Life Cycle Inventory Modeling in Practice 43
Beverly Sauer

4 Life Cycle Impact Assessment 67
Manuele Margni and Mary Ann Curran

5 Sourcing Life Cycle Inventory Data 105
Mary Ann Curran

6 Software for Life Cycle Assessment 143
Andreas Ctroth

Part 2: LCA Applications

7 Modeling the Agri-Food Industry with Life Cycle Assessment 159
Bruno Notarnicola, Giuseppe Tassielli and Pietro A. Renzulli

Exergy Analysis and its Connection to Life Cycle Assessment 185
Marc A. Rosen, Ibrahim Dincer and Ahmet Ozbilen

Accounting for Ecosystem Goods and Services in Life Cycle Assessment and Process Design 217
Erin F. Landers, Robert A. Urban and Bhavtk R. Baksht

A Case Study of the Practice of Sustainable Supply

Chain Management 233
Annie Wetsbrod and Larry Loftus

Life Cycle Assessment and End of Life Materials Management 249
Keith A. Weitz

Application of LCA in Mining and Minerals Processing – Current Programs and Noticeable Gaps 267
Dr. Mary Stewart, Dr. Peter Holt and Mr. Rob Rouwette

Sustainable Preservative-Treated Forest Products, Their Life Cycle Environmental Impacts, and End of Life Management Opportunities: A Case Study 291
Christopher A. Bolin

Buildings, Systems Thinking, and Life Cycle Assessment 311
Joel Ann Todd

Life Cycle Assessment in Product Innovation 329
Nuno Da Silva

Life Cycle Assessment as a Tool in Food Waste Reduction and Packaging Optimization - Packaging Innovation and Optimization in a Life Cycle Perspective 345
Ole Jörgen Haussen, Hanne Moller, Erik Svanes and Vibeke Schakenda

Integration of LCA and Life-Cycle Thinking within the Themes of Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 369
Shawn Hunter, Richard Helling and Dawn Shiang

Part 3: LCA Supports Decision Making and Sustainability

18 How to Approach the Assessment? 391
Jose Potting, Shabbtr Gheewala, Sebastten Bonnet and Joost van Buuren

19 Integration of MCDA Tools in Valuation of Comparative Life Cycle Assessment 413
Valenttna Prado, Kristen Rogers and Thomas P. Seager PhD

Social Life Cycle Assessment: A Technique Providing a New Wealth of Information to Inform Sustainability-Related Decision Making 433
Catherine Benott Norris

Life Cycle Sustainability Analysis 453
Alessandra Zamagni, Jeroen Guinee, Reinout Hetjungs and Paolo Masoni

22 Environmental Product Claims and Life Cycle Assessment 475
Martha J. Stevenson and Wesley W. Ingwersen

Part 4: Operationalizing LCA

23 Building Capacity for Life Cycle Assessment in Developing Countries 545
Prof. Toolseeram Ramjeawon

Environmental Accountability: A New Paradigm for World Trade is Emerging 563
Ann K. Ngo

Life Cycle Knowledge Informs Greener Products 585
James Fava

Index 597

MARY ANN CURRAN, PHD, is an internationally recognized expert in the field of life cycle assessment and management. She began working on LCA methodology in 1990 at the U.S. EPA's National Risk Management Research Laboratory in Cincinnati, Ohio. An author of numerous papers and book chapters on LCA, she has been instrumental in advancing LCA awareness worldwide and has presented her LCA-related research at technical meetings around the world. She serves on the editorial boards of multiple journals on LCA and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).