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(M/MC261) Life Cycle Assessment as a new environmental assessment tool for cities. Bruna, Paula1, Domènech, Xavier1, Rieradevall, Joan1,2, Milà i Canals, Llorenç1,2, 1 2 ABSTRACT- Life Cycle Assessment has been widely used as an environmental analysis tool for products and processes. Its use in the assessment of services, though, is less developed. In this study, LCA has been applied for the first time as an assessment tool of the environmental performance of a city (Manresa, Northwest of Barcelona). Due to the fact that a city is a huge multi-input and multi-output system, many difficulties have been found in the process, mainly for the collection of data. Also the definition of a functional unit has been a complex issue, although no comparison was being made in this study. LCA has shown to be a powerful tool due to its global perspective. Compared to more traditional tools for the analysis of cities, such as the ecological footprint, LCA tends to give a more complete result, which allows for a sound environmental assessment. The difficulties and advantages of using LCA in cities are discussed in this study, which can be considered the first application of LCA to a city. Key words: city lca, ecological footprint, urban ecology, services lca |
