Life Cycle Assessment and Risk Assessment: A Methodological Comparison.

Life Cycle Assessment and Risk Assessment are two different tools in environmental management. The paper identifies harmonies, discrepancies and relations between the two tools exemplified by the risk assessment principles of the European Commission (EC) and the LCA method ‘EDIP’ (En-vironmental Design of Industrial Products) developed in Denmark, respectively. A very important feature of LCA is the relative assessment due to the use of a functional unit. Risk assessment on the other hand is an absolute assessment, which may require very specific and detailed information on e.g. the exposure conditions. It is concluded that the conceptual background and the purpose of the tools are different but that there are overlaps where they may benefit from each other and they do complement each other in an overall environmental effort.