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(11-01) Simplifying life cycle assessment, a comparison of methods. Rebitzer, Gerald*,1, Hunkeler, David1, 1 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland ABSTRACT- Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has evolved into a powerful and robust methodological framework for conducting environmental assessments of products. However, for many applications the time and costs needed for an LCA study, specifically due to the effort needed for data collection and systems modeling, are judged not to correspond to the possible benefit of the results by many, if not most, decision makers. The latter is particularly true in the private sector. Furthermore, there is a concern whether the LCA community has established a methodology that is, in fact, beyond the reach of most potential users outside the scientific and public policy sectors. These limitations are particularly acute within contexts where a rapid decision for a new product or technology is required, such as during a design for environment (DfE) process, where time is a crucial factor. Therefore, in order to establish LCA as a routine assessment technique in product development, similar to preliminary cost assessments, also for small and medium sized companies, simplified (or streamlined, which is considered synonymous) LCA approaches are needed. For the specific decision to be made, a compromise between efficiency and level of confidence has to be found. The presentation reviews and compares existing approaches in regards to ease of application in DfE and achievable level of confidence. The suitability of a method for implementation in software algorithms, another requirement for many DfE applications, will also be discussed. Regarding methodological choices simplifying of the product system model and cut-off criteria as well as preliminary screening procedures are in the focus. Based on the aforementioned review recommendations for further developments of simplification techniques, specifically for compiling the life cycle inventory, are derived. Key words: LCA, Simplifying, Streamlining, System boundaries |
