Environmental News, 78 – Impact categories, normalisation and weighting in LCA

Impact categories, normalisation and weighting in LCA

Preface

This guideline has been prepared within the Danish LCA methodology and consensus-creation project carried out during the period from autumn 1997 to 2003. The guideline forms part of a series of guidelines dealing with key issues in LCA. These guidelines are planned to be published by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency during 2004.

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 an elaboration of and supplement to this general literature and not a substitution for this literature. The guidelines, however, build on the line of LCA methodology known as the EDIP methodology.

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

The guidelines are supported by a number of technical reports, which present the scientific discussions and documentation for recommendations offered by the guidelines. These reports are also planned to be published during 2004. The guidelines and the technical reports are presented in the overview figure below.

The development of the guidelines and the technical reports was initiated and supervised by the Danish EPA Ad Hoc Committee on LCA Methodology Issues in the period 1997-2001.

The research institutions and consulting firms active in the development and consensus process are:

COWI, Consulting Engineers and Planners (Project Management)
Institute for Product Development, 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
Danish Environmental Research Institute

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