Recent developments in Life Cycle Assessment
Publication: Research - peer-review › Journal article – Annual report year: 2009
Life Cycle Assessment is a tool to assess the environmental impacts and resources used throughout
a product’s life cycle, i.e., from raw material acquisition, via production and use phases, to waste
management. The methodological development in LCA has been strong, and LCA is broadly applied in
practice. The aim of this paper is to provide a review of recent developments of LCA methods. The focus is
on some areas where there has been an intense methodological development during the last years. We
also highlight some of the emerging issues. In relation to the Goal and Scope definition we especially
discuss the distinction between attributional and consequential LCA. For the Inventory Analysis, this
distinction is relevant when discussing system boundaries, data collection, and allocation. Also highlighted
are developments concerning databases and Input–Output and hybrid LCA. In the sections on Life
Cycle Impact Assessment we discuss the characteristics of the modelling as well as some recent developments
for specific impact categories and weighting. In relation to the Interpretation the focus is on
uncertainty analysis. Finally, we discuss recent developments in relation to some of the strengths and
weaknesses of LCA.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Journal of Environmental Management |
| Publication date | 2009 |
| Volume | 91 |
| Journal number | 1 |
| Pages | 1-21 |
| ISSN | 0301-4797 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published |
| Citations | Web of Science® Times Cited: 191 |
|---|
Keywords
- Risk assessment, Exergy analysis, Weighting, Valuation, Life Cycle Assessment, Strategic Environmental Assessment, LCA, Ecological footprint, LCC
ID: 3787079