PARENT SESSION
WA1 Life cycle management
9:00 AM to 12:30 PM, Wednesday, 09 May 2001
Session Chair: K. Saur
Room 1

(287) The Life Cycle Initiative: UNEP/SETAC co-operation on the identification of best available practice in LCA.

Udo de Haes, Helias¹, Jolliet, Olivier², Aloisi de Larderel, Jacqueline³, Bretz, Rolf⁴, Fava, Jim⁵, de Leeuw, Bas ³, McKone, Tom⁶, Norris, Greg⁷, Saur, Konrad⁸, ^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8}

ABSTRACT- For Life Cycle Management it is crucial to have sound information on LCA readily available. Crucial information comes from the ISO 14040 series. However, ISO only standardises concepts, technical frameworks, data formats and procedural requirements; it does not identify best methods and data. On the other hand, there are numerous activities regarding LCA methodology and databases. However, here international co-ordination and scientific review are mainly lacking. Starting points in this area were two working groups of SETAC-Europe, one for LCI and one for LCIA. A new development concerns the co-operation between SETAC (world level) and UNEP (DTIE office in Paris) regarding the identification of best available practice in LCA. This includes the development of LCI databases and the establishment of category indicators and characterisation factors for LCIA. The co-operation has been laid down in a Letter of Intent, now being followed by a business plan and plan for funding. In this process a number of strategic guidelines have been established, which will steer the coming activities. For LCI main guidelines identified so far pertain to: (1) How to choose between a focus on an exchange format between existing databases, and a physical database at one location? (2) How to choose between data at unit process level and data at building block level? (3) For the data at building block level, how to deal with underlying methodological choices, such as on allocation? For LCIA main guidelines pertain to: (1) How to deal with the dependency of LCIA data on different types of applications? (2) How to cope with uncertainty? (3) How to cope with value choices? (4) How to select category indicators in the environmental mechanism (midpoints versus endpoints)? These guidelines can already be seen as first results of the programme.

Key words: LCA, Best Practice