Environmental Project, 996 – Background for spatial differentiation in LCA impact assessment - the EDIP2003 methodology

Background for spatial differentiation in LCA impact assessment - The EDIP2003 methodology

Preface

This report was prepared within the Danish LCA methodology and consensus creation project during the period from 1997 to 2003.

The report is one out of five technical reports to be published by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency and dealing with key issues in LCA. The reports were prepared as background literature for a number of guidelines on LCA, planned to be published by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency during the autumn of 2004 and spring 2005. The reports present the scientific discussions and documentation for recommendations offered by the guidelines. The reports and guidelines developed within the project are presented in the overview figure below.

A primary objective of the guidelines has been to provide advice and recommendations on key issues in LCA at a more detailed level than offered by general literature, like the ISO-standards, the EDIP reports, the Nordic LCA project and SETAC publications. The guidelines must be regarded as a supplement to and not a substitution for this general literature.

It is, however, important to note that the guidelines were developed during a consensus process involving in reality all major research institutions and consulting firms engaged in the LCA field in Denmark. The advice given in the guidelines may thus be considered to represent what is generally accepted as best practice today in the field of LCA in Denmark.

The development of the guidelines and the technical reports was initiated and supervised by the Danish EPA Ad Hoc Committee on LCA Methodology Issues 1997-2001. The research institutions and consulting firms engaged in the development and consensus process are:

COWI, Consulting Engineers and Planners (Project Management)
Institute for Product Development, the Technical University of Denmark
FORCE Technology
The Danish Technological Institute
Carl Bro
The Danish Building Research Institute
DHI - Water and Environment
Danish Toxicology Institute
Rambøll
ECONET
National Environmental Research Institute

Guidelines and technical reports prepared within the Danish LCA-methodology and consensusproject

In addition to the contribution from all the major Danish research institutions and consulting firms working with life cycle assessment, the work on site-dependent impact assessment in LCA has also had a strong international touch through contributions from prominent European researchers with expertise within the different impact categories covered by the project.

The editing of the report by José Potting and Michael Hauschild has thus been based on work performed by the following research teams:

Chapter 3 Acidification

José Potting (Institute of Product Development (IPU), Technical University of Denmark, now the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies IVEM, University of Groningen, the Netherlands)

Wolfgang Schöpp (IIASA, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria)

Kornelis Blok (University of Utrecht, Department of Science, Technology and Society, the Netherlands)

Michael Hauschild (Institute of Product Development (IPU), Technical University of Denmark)

Chapter 4 Terrestrial eutrophication

José Potting

Wolfgang Schöpp

Michael Hauschild

Chapter 5 Aquatic eutrophication

José Potting

Arthur Beusen (RIVM, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands)

Henriette Øllgaard (The Danish Technological Institute)

Ole Christian Hansen (The Danish Technological Institute)

Bronno de Haan (RIVM, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands )

Michael Hauschild

Chapter 6 Photochemical ozone formation

Michael Hauschild

Annemarie Bastrup-Birk (Danish National Environmental Research Institute)

Ole Hertel (Danish National Environmental Research Institute)

Wolfgang Schöpp (IIASA, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria)

José Potting

Chapter 7 Human toxicity

José Potting

Alfred Trukenmüller (Stuttgart University, Institute of Energy Economics and the Rational Use of Energy, Germany)

Frans Møller Christensen (Danish Toxicology Institute)

Hans van Jaarsveld (RIVM, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands)

Stig I. Olsen (Institute of Product Development (IPU), Technical University of Denmark)

Michael Hauschild

Chapter 8 Ecotoxicity

Jens Tørsløv (Danish Hydraulic Institute)

Michael Hauschild

Dorte Rasmussen (Danish Hydraulic Institute)

Chapter 9 Noise nuisance

Per H. Nielsen (Institute of Product Development (IPU), Technical University of Denmark)

Jens E. Laursen (FORCE Technology)

Critical

Review Allan Astrup Jensen, FORCE Technology, Henrik Wenzel, IPU and Kim Christiansen, 2.-0 LCA Consultants have assisted in the process by critically reviewing all the guidelines and reports prepared.