| Front page | | Contents | | Previous | | Next |

State of LCA in Denmark 2003

2 What is LCA

2.1 What is LCA - the brief version

LCA stands for Life Cycle Assessment and is a tool aimed at giving an answer to the question:

What is best (or worst) seen from an environmental point of view.

LCA may be used for comparing products and systems and services based on the use of industrial products. A product in this context should be taken to include chemical substances, materials as well as real industrial products.

LCA may also be used to analyze environmental impacts for products throughout the entire life cycle of the product, aiming at identifying the most important environmental impacts and thereby determine, where to invest efforts in improving the environmental characteristics of the product.

LCA is not a specific methodology, but rather a name for a group of methodologies, which is as a common characteristic based on a systematic inventory and assessment of environmental impacts throughout the entire life cycle for a product. The purpose of undertaking this inventory and assessment is basically to make it possible to integrate environmental concerns into decision processes. LCA is therefore normally classified as a decision support tool that provides information on the potential environmental impacts related to products.

           International definition
The international definition of LCA, as stated in ISO Standard No. 14040,  is as follows [Jerlang et al. 2001]:

LCA is a technique for assessing the environmental aspects and potential impacts associated with a product, by

  • compiling an inventory of relevant inputs and outputs of a product system;
  • evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with those inputs and outputs;
  • interpreting the results of the inventory analysis and impact assessment phases in relation to the objectives of the study.

LCA studies the environmental aspects and potential impacts throughout a   product's life (i.e. cradle-to-grave) from raw materials acquisition through production, use and disposal. The general categories of environmental impacts needing consideration include resource use, human healt,h and ecological issues.

           The life cycle
It is characteristic of LCA that the assessment covers the entire life cycle of a product not restricted by national boarders, and therefore includes the following:

  • Extraction (of raw materials), inclusive of mining
  • Production (of  materials and products)
  • Use
  • Disposal, inclusive of recycling, waste incineration, biological waste treatment and landfilling as well as existing and future emissions from such facilities

The relevance of including the entire life cycle comes from the fact that impact on the environment may take place at any step throughout the life cycle. For different products the main impacts may, however, differ between the life-cycle phases. For some products the most important impacts may take place during the extraction phase. For other products the main impacts may be linked primarily to the production, the use or the disposal phases of the life cycle.

           Environmental impacts (and related health effects)
In principle LCA is covering all important types of environmental impacts. In table 1 are listed the environmental impacts that may be considered in LCA. In reality LCA will often be limited to the environmental impacts which can be quantified using existing methodologies. However, the correct approach is to include all types of environmental impacts in the assessments, although some types of impacts can only be assessed qualitatively.

LCA is developed as a tool for assessment of environmental impacts. Nothing prevents assessments of social or ethical conditions etc., as e.g. child labour or human rights, by the same principles as those used in connection with environmental impacts. However, no generally accepted methodologies to undertake such assessments have so far been developed, and LCA is by most people regarded as a tool that only deals with environmental impacts.

The working environment (occupational health and safety) is partly an exemption. So far the working environment has typically not been included in LCA. In Denmark the general understanding is that the working environment should be included in the assessments at least to ensure that benefits regarding the exterior environment do not lead to deteriorations of the working environment. Reference is made to section 3.5.

           The LCA process
The work to be carried out in an LCA will typically cover the following:

1.      Definition of goal and scope inclusive of system boundaries

2.      Collection of data on inputs and outputs related to the product during the entire life cycle (input/output covers raw materials, emissions and waste)

3.      The potential environmental impacts that follow from these inputs and outputs are calculated (this calculation may include normalisation and weighting)

4.      Interpretation of results (assessment of methodology choices, data shortages, system boundaries and uncertainties etc. compared to the scope of the LCA)

These activities represents the typical basic steps in every  LCA. Depending on the goal, scope and consequences etc., the efforts invested may however vary. An LCA may be simple and cheap, or an LCA may be complicated and expensive. This question is discussed further in sections 2.3 and 4.

Table 2.1
Environmental impacts (impact categories) that are or may be considered in LCA.1)

Impact Explanation
Global warming Heating of the atmosphere due to emission of CO2 and other gasses retaining heat radiation otherwise been emitted to the outer space. This heating may cause climatic changes. Integrated in the EDIP methodology.
Stratospheric ozone depletion The ozone layer in the stratosphere protects against ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun. Emission of persistent hydrocarbons containing chlorine or bromine destroys the ozone layer. Thereby the UV radiation is increasingly giving risk of skin cancer, eye diseases and reduced immune defence for humans and animals together with damage to plants. Integrated in the EDIP methodology.
Acidification Emission of acidifying compounds, e.g. SO2 , NOx  and ammonia attacks leafs and needles on trees and acidifies topsoil and lakes. Integrated in the EDIP methodology.
Eutrophication Emission of nutrients, in particular phosphorus and nitrogen, to lakes and the sea, causes increased growth of algae. When the algae die, they sink to the bottom and are decomposed. By the decomposition process oxygen is consumed, and heavy growth of algae may therefore lead to oxygen depletion in the sea and lakes, resulting in death of fish. Emission of nitrogen compounds to the atmosphere may also contribute to this process and may furthermore result in displacement of nutrient-poor ecosystems on land, like heath and raised bog. Integrated in the EDIP methodology.
Photochemical ozone formation Emission of organic solvents and non-combusted organic compounds to the air close to the ground may react with NOx  to form ozone and other reactive oxygen compounds that are toxic to humans, animals and plants. Integrated in the EDIP methodology.
Toxicity to humans Many chemicals and heavy metals are toxic to humans and affect humans via the environment, e.g. via the air, food, drinking water etc. Integrated in the EDIP methodology.
Toxicity to the environment Many chemicals and heavy metals are toxic to animals and plants. Integrated in the EDIP methodology.
Consumption of non-renewable resources Many of the materials, e.g. metals being used in daily life, are extracted from concentrated occurrences in nature. These occurrences are not recreated or at a rate so slow that it has no practical significance. Our use of the materials means that they either disappear, e.g. mineral oil, or are dispersed into nature, e.g. metals. Our use means that these resources at a time will be used up and thus they will not be available to future generations. Integrated in the EDIP methodology.
Landfilling of waste Waste being landfilled, occupies land that could have been used for other purposes. The waste will, furthermore, slowly be decomposed into chemical substances, which may leach or evaporate and thereby have an impact on the environment. This environmental impact may in the future be replaced by a calculation of the real impacts, e.g. land use. Integrated in the EDIP methodology.
Working environment The impact that humans are exposed to through their work. Covers accidents, poisoning and wear of the human body. Integrated in the EDIP methodology.
Land use All activities occupy land, which could have been used for other purposes - e.g. as nature for re-creational purposes. This environmental impact is not integrated in the EDIP methodology today, but is quantified in other LCA methodologies and may be integrated in EDIP in the future.
Noise, odour and radioactivity Noise, odour and radioactivity affect humans, animals and to some extent also plants. These types of environmental impacts may only be partly quantified and are typically not included in LCA today, but can be included in the future.
Energy In many cases the consumption of energy can be the dominating cause of environmental impacts like global warming, acidification and eutrophication. In simplified LCA one may often choose to focus on energy consumption as an impact category in itself.

Note to table 1
1)           Impact on biodiversity, i.e. the natural biological variation and biological resources, is not included as an independent impact category, as this type of impact is a consequence of most other impacts.

It is emphasized that in an LCA many choices and assessments are made that have an impact on the final result. Furthermore, uncertainties are connected with data and calculations. The interpretation of calculation results is therefore a very important step in LCA.

As the relevant choices and assessments as well as the interpretation are typically subjective, i.e. depend on the person undertaking the choice, the assessment or the interpretation, there will often be issues that can be discussed.  Therefore it is generally important to undertake quality control of LCA. Quality control is in LCA terminology named critical review.

Irrespective of quality control the scientific field of environment is very comprehensive, and it is continuously being developed. Some of those methods and principles of assessment assumed correct today could be outdated and regarded as wrong in 10 years from now. 10 years from now we may also recognize that important environment impacts are not covered by the methodologies applied today. In reality LCA is a tool, which continuously is being developed. This development should be expected to continue for at least the next 10-20 years.

This means that the outcome of an LCA seldom should be regarded as the ultimate truth. The outcome of an LCA should as the general rule be regarded as a qualified estimate of the truth and optimally as the best possible  estimate based on the knowledge available at the time of the assessment.

Irrespective of this, LCA is an important tool already today. Not least because  LCA is the only tool that can give a reasonably reliable answer to the following question: Which product or system is the best from the environmental point of view?

2.2 Applications of LCA

LCA is the natural tool for all decision-makers, who need to make a choice between different materials, technologies or products and want to consider environmental issues in this process.

The development of LCA reflects an increasing demand on all levels in society to integrate environmental concerns in decision processes and choose the alternatives which from an environmental perspective are the best. Many times in decision processes environmental issues are considered parallel to technical and financial issues. It is basically the responsibility of the decision-makers to determine the importance of the individual parameters in the process.

           Authorities
The authorities are using LCA for action planning at society level, which again may be reflected in legislation. LCA may also form the foundation for product standards, duties and incentive arrangements. To this may be added the use of LCA as foundation for guidelines in public green procurement and criteria for environmental labelling.

           Companies
Companies are using LCA in particular for development of new products and processes inclusive of investments in new facilities and routines of operation. Typically LCA will initially be used as an analytical tool to determine the focus for further efforts (hot spots). Later in the process LCA may be used as a decision support tool to determine the alternatives that are the best from the environmental perspective. The use of  LCA will vary from  "here and now" decisions to tactical and strategic planning in the long-term perspective, and LCA may be an integrated element of the corporate environmental management system.

Also marketing should be emphasized. The environmental performance of products is increasing in importance as a parameter of competition. Today this is most obvious regarding products as packaging. However, the trend can also be observed for products, e.g. electronics, generally marketed on their technical performance.

Marketing inter alia covers offensive marketing, in which the company is sending the message that their products in the environmental perspective are better than the products from their competitors. This may be compared to the more defensive style of marketing that companies want to make sure that their products cannot be "attacked", e.g. due to a content of hazardous substances, and that the companies anyway want to be able to respond, if competitors claim to be environmentally better. Finally environmental declarations and other sorts of environmental information to customers and other interested persons should be mentioned.

           Other users
Public service and construction companies are using LCA in relation to investments and system choices. This applies to transport as well as solid waste and wastewater treatment. Guidelines in environmental design and construction are based on LCA thinking.

To this may be added e.g. consumer organisations and other grass-roots organisations, who inter alia may use LCA, when it comes to debate on public matters.

           Environmental costs assessments
LCA should be an integrated element in environmental costs assessments, as  LCA is used to clarify the environmental consequences of different options, whereas the economic calculations may be regarded as a special form of weighting.

           To the extent  Cost-Benefit Analyses (CBA) addressing environmental issues are not based on LCA, it must be anticipated that the result of a CBA will not necessarily correspond to the result of an LCA, since the preconditions and assumptions on which the results are based may be different.

           What can LCA not be used for?
LCA is in itself not sensitive enough to be the only tool applied, when the risks related to introducing new chemicals in products are assessed. In such cases should be supplemented by Risk Assessment to assess the fate of the actual products and chemicals in society. In some cases it may be advisable, before a risk assessment is initiated, to assess the turnover and flow of the chemicals in society using Substance Flow Analyses.

           It is furthermore important to be aware of the fact that LCA gives an estimate of the potential environmental impacts, which is not necessarily the same as the actual impacts, as the actual impacts may depend on the local conditions, e.g.  of the extent to which the emission is diluted and the total load on the recipients in question. LCA therefore cannot replace environmental impact assessment for production facilities according to the law of environmental protection. LCA may, however, be used as documentation towards the authorities justifying selection of specific technologies.

           LCA cannot replace workplace assessments and other types of working environment assessments carried out according to the law on working environment (reference is made to section 3.5).

2.3 LCA levels

LCA may be carried out at several levels, which differ heavily with respect  to effort and thoroughness required and frequently also the uncertainty related to the result.

According to tradition one should distinguish between at least the following  3 levels, for which the effort and the thoroughness required are increasing considerably from level 1 to 3 (cf. e.g. [Jerlang et al. 2001]):

Level 1
Life-cycle thinking

Level 2
Simplified LCA

Level 3
Detailed LCA

Level 1 - life-cycle thinking is also known as conceptual LCA and covers the type of LCA that primarily is a qualitative assessment based by and large on knowledge at hand of significant environmental impacts during the life cycle of the products. Life-cycle thinking will typically be presented in rules of thumb like [Remmen & Münster, 2002]:

  • Reduce consumption of energy and materials throughout the life cycle of the product
  • Replace hazardous substances by more environmentally acceptable alternatives
  • Use materials that can be recycled
  • Design to allow the product in whole or partly to be recycled
  • Make the product easy to repair

SWOT-LCA is also included as life-cycle thinking. SWOT is a systematic qualitative assessment of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Level 2 -simplified LCA is often known as screening LCA. This type of LCA will try to reduce data collection and thereby the total effort. One will start with an introductory screening aimed at identifying the most important environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of the product. This screening will frequently be semi-quantitative. Based on the result of the screening the further work is focused on the issues deemed to be the most important. Then EDIP  MECO-methodology (see section 2.4) is an example of a methodology for simplified LCA.

Level 3 - detailed LCA covers the type of LCA, in which a computer programme is use to establish a model containing all the relevant data. A quantitative calculation is carried out for all environmental impacts that can be quantified. A significant advantage of this level is that when the computer model has been established, it is a small task to evaluate many different alternatives.

Common to all levels are that the assessment aims at including all parts of the life cycle and all important environmental impacts. The difference between the levels is related to the effort invested for data collection and calculations and thereby the detailing, the thoroughness and the precision obtained. The necessary manpower input required can as a rule of thumb be summarised as follows:

Level Known as Manpower required
 (yardstick)
1 Life-cycle thinking Hours
2 Simplified LCA Days
3 Detailed LCA Weeks - months

In section 4. is discussed for which activities the individual levels are appropriate.

2.4 Guidelines and tools

Today a very long list of guidelines and tools related to LCA exists. In the following the guidelines and tools that from a Danish perspective should be regarded as the most important are briefly presented.

ISO standards
The general framework for LCA is determined by the ISO standards ISO 14040-43 [DS/EN ISO 14040, 1997 - 14043, 2000].  These standards provide guidance regarding the single steps in LCA, but do not define any specific methodology and will typically not give concrete examples on how to perform the single steps in LCA.  The Danish Agency of Standardisation has, however, also published a commented translation of the standards (see [Jerlang et al. 2001]). This translation includes a number of examples for illustration of the text.

That an LCA fulfils the ISO standards should be regarded as a form of quality mark. For this reason it is relevant to be familiar with the ISO standards.

The EDIP methodology
The EDIP methodology is the closest one may get to an official Danish LCA methodology. The methodology is developed at the Technical University of Denmark supported by the Danish EPA and the Association of Danish Industries. EDIP stands for Environmental Development of Industrial Products. The EDIP methodology comprises a screening methodology , known as the MECO-methodology, and a detailed methodology that assumes the use of computer programmes. Both of these methods are described in the EDIP-handbooks, which are published in Danish in 1996  [Wenzel et al. 1996; Hauschild 1996] and in English in 1997-98 [Wenzel et al. 1997; Hauschild & Wenzel 1998]. Simultaneously with the publishing of the English version an expansion and updating of the data foundation took place. The two versions are for practical purposes known as EDIP96 and EDIP97. The detailed version of EDIP fulfils the ISO standards.

MECO stands for "Materials, Energy, Chemicals and Other issues" and  states the headlines used for the assessment criteria in this methodology. For materials (synonymous with resources) and energy are typically used quantitative calculations, whereas chemicals and other issues are assessed qualitatively or semi-quantitatively depending on how carefully the assessment is carried out.

Other Danish LCA handbooks
Of other Danish LCA handbooks must be mentioned:

  • Kom godt i gang med livscyklustankegangen (Get a good start with life-cycle thinking)
    This booklet [Remmen & Münster 2002] describes the environmental work at the company level based on life-cycle thinking and is in many ways a good introduction to the kind of LCA known as life-cycle thinking.
  • Håndbog i miljøvurdering af produkter - en enkel metode (Handbook in environmental assessment of products - a simple methodology)
    This handbook [Pommer et al. 2001] is issued by the Danish EPA and should be regarded as a easily accessible presentation of the EDIP methodology. The handbook is focused on the MECO methodology, but contains much good advice related to the entire process of undertaking an LCA. The handbook is addressing all types of users, private companies and others and is furthermore suitable for teaching activities.
  • Green Network's handbook in life-cycle assessment
    The handbook [Green Network, 1999] is developed by Green Network in the County of Vejle, Denmark. The handbook is based on the EDIP methodology (primarily the detailed level). The handbook is addressed  directly to private companies and should be used together with Green Networks handbook on environmental reviews. The handbooks may be regarded as an example of how local authorities may aim at guiding private companies.

SETAC reports
SETAC stands for Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry and is a international scientific society. SETAC is the most important international platform for scientific discussion and development of consensus in the  LCA field. SETAC has throughout the years published a number of reports and guidelines on LCA, which are commonly referred to. SETAC and SETAC reports are primarily relevant to persons aiming at keeping up with the new scientific development within LCA.

Dutch LCA guidelines
Also in the Netherlands significant developments within LCA are continuously  taking place. The basic handbook  Environmental life cycle assessment from 1992 [Heijungs et al. 1992] has recently been updated. The updated version Life cycle assessment - an operational guide to the ISO standards [Guinée et al. 2001] could be relevant to persons, who are dealing with LCA in a international context.

Computer tools
Many types of software designed for LCA have been developed during the last decade. In the report [Jensen et al. 1997] a thorough overview is given. The dominating computer tool in Denmark has been the EDIP tool, which was marketed by the Danish EPA. When the Danish LCA Center was established  in 2003, it was furthermore decided that EDIP tool no longer would be supported and updated.

Development and updating of computer tools able to use the EDIP methodology will in the future take place via the Danish LCA Center. It is assumed that the following computer tools would be approved to dissemination of the EDIP methodology:

GaBi
GaBi is the official partner to the Danish LCA Center, and GaBi vil continuously be updated in order to support any significant improvement of the EDIP methodology. GaBi is in particular utilised by large industrial companies in Europe, e.g. the automobile industry in Germany.

SimaPro
SimaPro is probably the most widely distributed computer programme for LCA in a global context.

 

| Front page | | Contents | | Previous | | Next | | Top |



Version 1.0 October 2007, © Danish Environmental Protection Agency