1 Life Cycle Impact Assessment

2 Admin Issues HW 2 Answers (done grading?) Setting group presentations –1 or 2 classes –can we run late? –How much time? –Or do on Friday? Spreadsheets for EIO-LCA Impact Assessment Exercise/Lecture

3 Impact Assessment (LCIA) Mandatory Elements: –Selection (impact categories, their indicators, and characterization models) –Classification (assigning LCI results to categories) –Characterization (calculation of category results) Optional Elements: –Normalization (comparing to reference info) –Grouping (sorting/ranking impact categories) –Weighting (with numerical factors/value choices) –Data Quality Analysis (uncertainty/sensitivity)

4 Midpoints vs. Endpoints Typical LCI result is ‘an emission, waste generation, etc.’ - This is a midpoint Breathing emissions, etc. potentially leads to health effects - these are endpoints or impacts Now you can see why many studies stop at LCI stage!

5 LCIA ‘Model’ Example Should have a comprehensive set of impact categories/indicators Your own “values” should not bias your model Source: ISO Doc

6 Limitations Scientific method combined with values Lack of comprehensive focus/boundary Category indicators not equally important or precise Lack of complete data

7 Models

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