LCA in Japan: policy and progress

A summary of the current Japanese activities related to Life Cycle Assessment are presented with a specific comparison of Life Cycle Impact Assessment in relation to European tendencies. Japanese organizations involved in LCA, recent legislation impacting LCA activities and LCA case studies are also tabulated. The LCA priorities of policy makers and industrialists are discussed in comparison and compared to those in the United States. Projects within the Life Cycle Assessment Society of Japan and the Man-Earth Project are highlighted including the construction of a public LCI data base and the prediction of 21st century environmental crises.     

Water scarcity in Brazil: part 2—uncertainty assessment in regionalized characterization factors

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Despite recommendations, uncertainty results are rarely incorporated in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies, especially regarding...     

Environmental footprint of cultivating strawberry in Spain

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Strawberry is cultivated worldwide under different production systems. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology has been applied to evaluate...     

Development of LCA benchmarks for Austrian torrent control structures

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - This study emerged from a research project that aimed to develop a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) model for torrent control structures. This...     

Comparing sources and analysis of uncertainty in consequential and attributional life cycle assessment: review of current practice and recommendations

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Life cycle assessment (LCA) is intended as a quantitative decision support tool. However, the large amount of uncertainty characteristic of LCA...     

Contribution-based prioritization of LCI database improvements: the most important unit processes in ecoinvent

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Improving the quality and quantity of unit process datasets in Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) databases affects every LCA they are used in. However,...     

From life cycle talking to taking action

Introduction  

The biannual Life Cycle Management conference series aims to create a platform for users and developers of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and related tools to share their experiences. A key concern of the LCM community has been to move beyond the production of LCA reports toward using the developed knowledge. This paper reports and evaluates some of the main outcomes of the 4th International Life Cycle Management Conference (LCM 2009).     

Prioritizing regionalization efforts in life cycle assessment through global sensitivity analysis: a sector meta-analysis based on ecoinvent v3

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Regionalization in life cycle assessment (LCA) aims to increase the representativeness of LCA results and reduce the uncertainty due to spatial...     

Development and demonstration of an uncertainty management methodology for life cycle assessment in a tiered-hybrid case study of an Irish apartment development

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - It has been recognised by life cycle assessment (LCA) practitioners that uncertainty analysis needs to be incorporated into LCA studies to...     

Environmental life cycle implications of upscaling lithium-ion battery production

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Life cycle assessment (LCA) literature evaluating environmental burdens from lithium-ion battery (LIB) production facilities lacks an...     

Selecting the best product alternative in a sea of uncertainty

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Most LCA studies are comparative and to an increasing extent the effects uncertainty are included in LCA results. This raises the question how...     

Back to basics—the school lunch

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - The effort to develop social life cycle assessment (Social LCA) along the same principles and procedural steps as LCA has met serious challenges...     

End-of-life modelling of buildings to support more informed decisions towards achieving circular economy targets

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an internationally accepted method to assess the environmental impacts of buildings. A major methodological...     

Accounting for biodiversity in life cycle impact assessments of forestry and agricultural systems—the BioImpact metric

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a useful method for assessing environmental impacts at large scales. Biodiversity and ecosystem diversity are...     

Environmental impact assessment of biomass process chains at early design stages using decision trees

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Life cycle assessment (LCA) is generally considered as a suitable methodology for the evaluation of environmental impacts of processes. However,...     

Distribution of environmental performance in life cycle assessments—implications for environmental benchmarking

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Life cycle assessment (LCA) is considered a robust method to analyse the environmental impacts of products and is used in public and private...     

A model for streamlining and automating path exchange hybrid life cycle assessment

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Life cycle assessment (LCA) is inherently complex and time consuming. The compilation of life cycle inventories (LCI) using a traditional...     

Inclusion of prevention scenarios in LCA of construction waste management

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been applied extensively for the environmental evaluation of solid waste management. However, there are only a...     

Selection of building thermal insulation materials using robust optimization

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Life cycle assessment (LCA) is commonly used to analyze the environmental profile of a material and product. For example, the selection of...     

The evolution of life cycle assessment in European policies over three decades

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Life cycle thinking (LCT) and life cycle assessment (LCA) are increasingly considered pivotal concept and method for supporting...