Environmental Life Cycle Assessment

Environmental Life Cycle Assessment is a pivotal guide to identifying environmental problems and reducing related impacts for companies and organizations in need of life cycle assessment (LCA). LCA, a unique sustainability tool, provides a framework that addresses a growing demand for practical technological solutions. Detailing each phase of the LCA methodology, this textbook covers the historical development of LCA, presents the general principles and characteristics of LCA, and outlines the corresponding standards for good practice determined by the International Organization for Standardization. It also explains how to identify the critical aspects of an LCA, provides detailed examples of LCA analysis and applications, and includes illustrated problems and solutions with concrete examples from water management, electronics, packaging, automotive, and other industries.

In addition, readers will learn how to:

• Use consistent criteria to realize and evaluate an LCA independently of individual interests
• Understand the LCA methodology and become familiar with existing databases and methods based on the latest results of international research
• Analyze and critique a completed LCA
• Apply LCA methodology to simple case studies

Geared toward graduate and undergraduate students studying environmental science and industrial ecology, as well as practicing environmental engineers, and sustainability professionals who want to teach themselves LCA good practices, Environmental Life Cycle Assessment demonstrates how to conduct environmental assessments for products throughout their life cycles. It presents existing methods and recent developments in the growing field of LCA and systematically covers goal and system definition, life cycle inventory, life cycle impact assessment, and interpretation.

Introduction. General Principles of Life Cycle Assessment. Goal and System Definition. Inventory Analysis of Emissions and Extractions. Life Cycle Impact Assessment. Interpretation. Conclusions and Key Points. LCA through Example from A to Z: Treating Urban Sewage Sludge. Metacomparison of the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Bio-Based Products. Appendices. Glossary. References.

Olivier Jolliet is professor in life cycle impact and risk modeling at the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health, University of Michigan. He is also one of the founders of Quantis-International, which provides life cycle assessment (LCA) expertise to companies and governments and is one of the two co-initiators of the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative. Dr. Jolliet has been one of the pioneers in developing LCA and applying it to food sustainability and innovative technologies since the early 1990s, He has developed comprehensive Life Cycle Impact Assessment Methods, such as the IMPACT2002 method He has authored or coauthored 150 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.

Myriam Saadé-Sbeih earned her PhD in environmental sciences from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2011, after working for two years in the Life Cycle System group of Professor Jolliet at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne. She is currently a research fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, and since 2012 has been the scientific coordinator of a research program on the transboundary Orontes River basin, funded by the Swiss Development and Cooperation Agency. Her research focuses on human–hydrosystem coevolution in uncertain contexts, especially in the Middle East.

Shanna Shaked is lecturer in the departments of Physics & Astronomy and Environmental Science at the University of California – Los Angeles, teaching LCA and physics. She serves on the UCLA Physical Sciences Undergraduate Education Committee to improve undergraduate teaching using evidence-based techniques. Sheearned her PhD in applied physics from the University of Michigan in 2011 after receiving her BS and BA in physics, astronomy, and mathematics from the University of Arizona in 2002. She received her MA in teaching from Ithaca College in 2013. She is passionate about