During a Life Cycle Assessment (Life Cycle Analysis), you evaluate the potential environmental impacts throughout the entire life cycle of a product (production, distribution, use and end-of-life phases) or service. This also includes the upstream (e.g., suppliers) and downstream (e.g., waste management) processes associated with the production (e.g., production of raw, auxiliary and operating materials), use phase, and disposal (e.g., waste incineration). Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) covers all relevant inputs from the environment (e.g., ores and crude oil, water, land use) as well as emissions into air, water and soil (e.g., carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides). The International Organization for Standardization provides guidelines and requirements for conducting a Life Cycle Assessment according to ISO 14040 and 14044. The Main Phases of Life Cycle AssessmentGoal & Scope Definition Inventory Analysis Impact Assessment Interpretation Life Cycle Assessment TerminologySystem Boundary Product System Functional Unit Reference Flow Life Cycle Inventory Analysis (LCI) Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) Interpretation Reporting Critical Review Impact Categories
How Is Data Collected for Life Cycle Assessment?
What Are the Steps Involved in Completing a LCA Study?The following chart summarizes the overall approach for an LCA study, established as a best-practice approach over decades of performing and delivering quality LCA studies and results to clients from a multitude of different sectors. Over the past 30 years, the Sphera Sustainability Consulting Team has performed hundreds of Life Cycle Assessments on products from nearly every industry sector and helped create the world’s largest and most up-to-date databases for life cycle inventory (LCI). What is an analysis of environmental impacts of products from the design stage through end of life?A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is defined as the systematic analysis of the potential environmental impacts of products or services during their entire life cycle.
What is an analysis of environmental impacts of products?Life cycle analysis evaluates the environmental impact of a product or process over its entire cycle of design, production, and disposal.
What are the 5 stages of a life cycle analysis?There are 5 Main Life Cycle Stages. Everything that is produced goes through these five main life cycle stages: materiel extraction, manufacturing. packaging and transportation, use and end of life. At each of these stages, there are inputs and outputs, flow-throughs, value losses, and potential gains.
What are the environmentally important lifecycle stages of a product?The life cycle of a product can be divided into 5 phases:. Extracting, processing and/or supplying raw materials;. Manufacturing/ production;. Putting into circulation – transporting, distributing and marketing efforts;. Use, reuse and produce maintenance;. End of life management (recycling and disposal).. |