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1.
Shaun Engelbrecht A. O. Ladenika O. S. MacGregor Mpho Maepa Michael O. Bodunrin Nicholas W. Burman Joel Croft Taahira Goga Kevin G. Harding 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2018,23(8):1708-1713
Purpose
In order to understand the environmental impacts of various products, processes, or services, it should be possible to obtain life-cycle assessment (LCA) reports quickly and easily without having to delve into restricted access or hidden databases. The aim of this study is to assess the availability of environmental LCAs, water footprinting, and carbon footprinting studies conducted in New Zealand.Methods
To review the quantitative availability of life-cycle assessment studies for New Zealand, simple online searches were performed using the Google and Google Scholar search engines. Additionally, ScienceDirect and Scopus were used to determine the availability of other peer-reviewed LCA-related reports.Results and discussion
For the period under review, 20 documents were publicly available. Additionally, other searches conducted via ScienceDirect, Scopus and Google Scholar yielded a further 15 restricted documents. The results included data carbon- and water footprinting studies. The number of LCAs and carbon footprinting reports both exceeded those of water footprinting.Conclusions
Over 35 studies were available through Internet searches. This number excludes wool which had six results (Scopus only) and many more through Google. These were not included due to possible repetition and miscounting of results.2.
Nicholas W. Burman Joel Croft Shaun Engelbrecht A. O. Ladenika O. S. MacGregor Mpho Maepa Michael Oluwatosin Bodunrin Kevin G. Harding 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2018,23(8):1693-1700
Purpose
A review of readily available quantitative environmental data was conducted in order to determine the state of sustainability reporting and identify possible future research areas in Portugal.Methods
Internet searches of articles written in English and published between 2001 and 2015 were conducted using the keywords “life-cycle assessment,” “LCA,” “water footprint,” “carbon footprint,” and “Portugal.” Additionally, reports from the Global Reporting Initiative (2015 only) were included in the search.Results and discussion
It was found that 79% of reports found were published in the period 2011–2015. Several reports were found for the forestry, paper and pulp, food and beverage, energy and electricity, waste management, and automotive industries, while no reports were found for the textile, footwear and clothing, and base metal and mineral industries. As such, these are industries on which future studies might focus. No reports found were published by governmental organizations, although it is thought that expanding the search to include Portuguese language results would yields more results. The majority (68%) of companies reporting to the GRI adhered to the relevant guidelines.Conclusions
A total of 72 reports were found (41 LCAs, water- or carbon footprints, and 31 GRI reports). It is unclear if there are other reports that may be restricted to “hidden” datasets or company specific archives. The aim of this report was to highlight those that were available to a non-specialist or international audiences trying to gain a greater understanding of the LCA space in Portugal.3.
Mpho Maepa Michael Oluwatosin Bodunrin Nicholas W. Burman Joel Croft Shaun Engelbrecht A. O. Ladenika O. S. MacGregor Kevin G. Harding 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2017,22(7):1159-1164
Purpose
Life cycle assessments (LCAs) are considered common quantitative environmental techniques to analyze the environmental impact of products and/or services throughout their entire life cycle. A few LCA studies have been conducted in West Africa. This study aimed to discuss the availability of LCA (and similar) studies in Nigeria, Ghana, and Ivory Coast.Methods
An online literature review of reports published between 2000 and 2016 was conducted using the following keywords: “life cycle assessment,” “carbon footprinting,” “water footprinting,” “environmental impact,” “Nigeria,” “Ghana” and “Ivory Coast.”Results and discussion
A total of 31 LCA and environmental studies in Nigeria, Ghana, and Ivory Coast were found; all but one were conducted after 2008. These were mainly academic and most were publicly available. The industries studied included energy sector, waste management, real estate, food sector, and others such as timber and gold. The minimal number of studies on LCAs and environmental impacts in these West African states could be because companies are failing to promote quantitative environmental studies or studies are kept internally for the use of other assessment techniques. Furthermore, it could be that academic research institutions lack cutting-edge research resources for LCA, environmental impact, carbon, and water footprinting studies.Conclusions
Further quantitative environmental studies should be conducted in Nigeria, Ghana, and Ivory Coast to increase the understanding of environmental impacts. In these countries, the existence of LCA studies (and by association the localized life cycle inventory (LCI) datasets) is crucial as more companies request this information to feed into background processes.4.
Stephan Pfister Samuel Vionnet Tereza Levova Sebastien Humbert 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2016,21(9):1349-1360
Purpose
Water footprinting and the assessment of water use in life cycle assessment have become of major interest in sustainability assessments. Various initiatives for combining water resource issues with consumption of products and services have been initiated in the last decade. However, comprehensive databases fulfilling the requirements for addressing these issues have been lacking and are necessary to facilitate efficient and consistent assessments of products and services. To this purpose, ecoinvent focused on integrating appropriate water use data into version 3, since previously water use data has been inconsistently reported and some essential flows were missing. This paper describes the structure of the water use data in ecoinvent, how the data has been compiled and the way it can be used for water footprinting.Methods
The main changes required for proper assessment of water use are the addition of environmental and product flows in order to allow a water balance over each process. This is in accordance with the strict paradigm in ecoinvent 3 to focus on mass balances, which requires the inclusion of water contents of all products (also for e.g. waste water flows), as well as emissions of water to soil, air and various water bodies. Water inputs from air (e.g. rainwater harvesting) is introduced but is not yet used by any activity.Results and discussion
Ecoinvent version 3.1 consistently includes the relevant flows to address water use in life cycle assessment (LCA) and calculate water footprints on the product level for most processes including uncertainty information. Although some problems regarding data quality and spatial resolution remain, this is an important step forward and can limit efforts for detailed data collection to the most sensitive processes in the product system. With the combination of data on water use and emissions to water for each process, concentration and corresponding water classes can also be calculated and assessed with existing impact assessment methods.Conclusions
This comprehensive collection of water use data on the process level facilitates the proper assessment of water use within an LCA and water footprints beyond agricultural production. Especially in LCA, but also in tools for eco-design and specific water footprint, this data is essential and leads to a cost-efficient way of assessing consumption choices and product design decisions with full transparency. It enhances the effectiveness of investing in data collection by performing sensitivity analyses using ecoinvent data to identify the most relevant flows and processes.5.
6.
Tiago G. Morais Ricardo F. M. Teixeira Tiago Domingos 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2016,21(6):875-884
Purpose
One of the main trends in life cycle assessment (LCA) today is towards increased regionalization in inventories and impact assessment methods. LCA studies require the collection of activity data but also of increasingly region-specific background data to accurately depict supply chain processes and enable the application of an increasing number of geographically explicit impact assessment models. This is particularly important for agri-food products. In this review, we assess progress in Portugal towards this goal and provide recommendations for future developments.Methods
We perform a comprehensive review of available LCA studies conducted for Portuguese agri-food products, in order to evaluate the current state of Portuguese agri-food LCA. Among other issues, we assess availability of data, methods used, level of regionalization, impact assessment model relevance and coherence for inter-product comparability. We also provide conclusions and recommendations based on recent developments in the field.Results and discussion
We found 22 LCA studies, covering 22 different products. The analysis of these studies reveals limitations in inter-study comparability. The main challenges have to do with a lack of country-specific foreground data sources applied consistently in the studies found, with discrepancies in impact assessment categories, and with the use of simple functional units that may misrepresent the product analyzed.Conclusions
We conclude that Portuguese agri-food LCA studies do not have a systematic and country-scale approach in order to guarantee regional accuracy and comparability. We propose a research strategy to engage the Portuguese agri-food LCA community in devising a consistent framework before practical application studies are conducted.7.
Ingo Meinshausen Peter Müller-Beilschmidt Tobias Viere 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2016,21(9):1231-1235
Purpose
This paper introduces the new EcoSpold data format for life cycle inventory (LCI).Methods
A short historical retrospect on data formats in the life cycle assessment (LCA) field is given. The guiding principles for the revision and implementation are explained. Some technical basics of the data format are described, and changes to the previous data format are explained.Results
The EcoSpold 2 data format caters for new requirements that have arisen in the LCA field in recent years.Conclusions
The new data format is the basis for the Ecoinvent v3 database, but since it is an open data format, it is expected to be adopted by other LCI databases. Several new concepts used in the new EcoSpold 2 data format open the way for new possibilities for the LCA practitioners and to expand the application of the datasets in other fields beyond LCA (e.g., Material Flow Analysis, Energy Balancing).8.
Wesley W. Ingwersen Ezra Kahn Joyce Cooper 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2018,23(11):2266-2270
Introduction
New platforms are emerging that enable more data providers to publish life cycle inventory data.Background
Providing datasets that are not complete LCA models results in fragments that are difficult for practitioners to integrate and use for LCA modeling. Additionally, when proxies are used to provide a technosphere input to a process that was not originally intended by the process authors, in most LCA software, this requires modifying the original process.Results
The use of a bridge process, which is a process created to link two existing processes, is proposed as a solution.Discussion
Benefits to bridge processes include increasing model transparency, facilitating dataset sharing and integration without compromising original dataset integrity and independence, providing a structure with which to make the data quality associated with process linkages explicit, and increasing model flexibility in the case that multiple bridges are provided. A drawback is that they add additional processes to existing LCA models which will increase their size.Conclusions
Bridge processes can be an enabler in allowing users to integrate new datasets without modifying them to link to background databases or other processes they have available. They may not be the ideal long-term solution but provide a solution that works within the existing LCA data model.9.
Francesco Testa Benedetta Nucci Sara Tessitore Fabio Iraldo Tiberio Daddi 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2016,21(10):1501-1513
Purpose
This paper introduces the results of an Italian survey on the implementation of life cycle assessment (LCA). Both LCA adopters and nonadopters were involved, in order to understand the main benefits and barriers to the adoption of LCA and how the experiences of LCA adopters differ from the expectations of nonadopters.Methods
Approximately 2000 Italian companies were contacted and 122 companies participated in the online survey, which represent the 6.5 % of the statistical population of our study. To define the statistical population, firms that had implemented an LCA or an environmental initiative according to an official international standard were only considered. Statistically significant differences in answers between LCA adopters and nonadopters were tested by performing the Mann–Whitney test.Results and discussion
Companies recognize that LCA can provide useful information to drive strategic decisions and product design, and it is perceived as an opportunity to improve the current monitoring systems. In addition, companies recognize the potential of LCA in marketing, making the communication of green attributes more substantial and robust. Focusing on the barriers experienced by LCA adopters, data collection can be cited. Communication issues also pose a barrier to the further implementation of LCA. The analysis of the results and the comparison of the results for the two groups of respondents highlight that on average, the difficulties are considered as more important than the benefits and that nonadopters tend to overestimate the difficulties and underestimate the benefits connected to the implementation of LCA.Conclusions
The findings shed light on LCA-related issues both for companies and public servants. The misconception of LCA by nonadopters suggests that an increased awareness is the key to the success of LCA and to its more widespread adoption by companies. It is essential to create and disseminate know-how and sensitize companies to the real barriers and benefits of adopting an LCA. The awareness of potential LCA adopters can be raised by training and education initiatives, as well as by increased possibilities to experiment with these kinds of tools (public programs for financial support, fiscal incentives). On the other hand, market and communication research would contribute to better understand how the environmental impacts of products can be more effectively communicated to clients and consumers.10.
Sonia Valdivia Guido Sonnemann Llorenç Milà i Canals 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2017,22(4):485-491
Purpose
Based on the 2005–2014 developments in the Latin American and the Caribbean region (LAC), this paper aims to understand the conditions’ levels for mainstreaming life cycle assessment/life cycle management (LCA/LCM) and map key next actions.Methods
Along the paper, four mainstreaming conditions are analyzed: expansion of LCM/LCA training activities, availability of LCA studies, national LCA database operating, and existence and activity of national life cycle network(s). Assuming that countries with better conditions are in a better position to develop national LCA based regulations, policies are also researched to complement this study.Results and discussion
With nine life cycle (LC) networks in 2014, the LAC region has positively developed its networking capacities since 2005 but not the databases area (only one LCA database, Mexicaniuh, is fully operational). It was found that countries with no networks, lack all LCA trainings, studies, and databases.Local capacities are limited which in best case, Chile, does not exceed 18 practitioners per 10 million inhabitants. Based on the total score on mainstreaming conditions, Mexico and Brazil are the most advanced countries, but their markets for LCA professionals are still small (Valdivia et al. 2015), which suggests that tailored made strategies are needed for stronger uptake of LCA by industrial sectors.Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Colombia are in the second tier but still lack a critical mass of business cases and the political will to improve their mainstreaming conditions.Conclusions
LCA development in the LAC region since 2005 is overall positive but still insufficient to serve the growth of prosperous LCA markets. Well-functioning LC networks are essential to leapfrog LCA. In 2014, about 27 % of LAC countries counted on a LC network. A common language in the region (except for Portuguese in Brazil) has been instrumental for expanding LCA through regional cooperation. LCA-based policies are boosted when local capacities and databases are available following the cases of Mexico, Chile, and Brazil. More data and research are needed to understand the women role in advancing LCA and the causalities and motivations of LAC companies to decide for LCA implementation. The application of the methodology was possible thanks to good quality data available and delivered key findings to develop national road maps for advancing LCA. No indicator used is specific for the LAC region and similar exercises are encouraged in other regions such as Africa and Asia.11.
Lisa Marie Gruber Christian Peter Brandstetter Ulrike Bos Jan Paul Lindner Stefan Albrecht 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2016,21(5):773-784
Purpose
In the light of anthropogenic resource depletion and the resulting influences on the greenhouse effect as well as globally occurring famine, food waste has garnered increased public interest in recent years. The aim of this study is to analyze the environmental impacts of food waste and to determine to what extent consumers’ behavior influences the environmental burden of food consumption in households.Methods
A life cycle assessment (LCA) study of three food products is conducted, following the ISO 14040/44 life cycle assessment guidelines. This study addresses the impact categories climate change (GWP100), eutrophication (EP), and acidification (AP). Primary energy demand (PED) is also calculated. For adequate representation of consumer behavior, scenarios based on various consumer types are generated in the customer stage. The customer stage includes the food-related activities: shopping, storage, preparation, and disposal of food products as well as the disposal of the sales packaging.Results and discussion
If the consumer acts careless towards the environment, the customer stage appears as the main hotspot in the LCA of food products. The environmental impact of food products can be reduced in the customer stage by an environmentally conscious consumer. Shopping has the highest effect on the evaluated impact categories and the PED. Additionally, consumers can reduce the resulting emissions by decreasing the electric energy demand, particularly concerning food storage or preparation. Moreover, results show that the avoidance of wasting unconsumed food can reduce the environmental impact significantly.Conclusions
Results of this study show that the influence of consumer behavior on the LCA results is important. The customer stage of food products should not be overlooked in LCA studies. To enable comparison among results of other LCA studies, the LCA community needs to develop a common methodology for modeling consumer behavior.12.
Ge Qian 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2016,21(7):1049-1058
Purpose
This paper aims to verify whether life cycle assessment (LCA) research can be mainly treated as a kind of pro-environmental behavior due to public environment concerns, or academic and research activities based on scientific traditions.Methods
This paper uses the international comparisons method for modeling and SPSS 16.0 for data processing. The data in this study were obtained from the Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme and the Web of Science by the Institute for Scientific Information.Results and discussion
Our empirical study shows that the two main factors influencing the outputs per capita of the research articles in LCA in a particular country are the value of Environmental Performance Index, which represents the overall environmental quality, as well as the outputs per capita of the research articles in environmental science and technology. The results of statistical analysis show two J-type curves: with the change of the independent variables, the dependent variable changes in the same direction, but at a rate that is first slow, then fast.Conclusions
LCA research results from scientific traditions and can only develop based on fundamental research in environmental science and technology. Further, LCA research is a pro-environmental behavior due to actual and objective effects rather than subjective motives as more research on LCA can accompany, even in some degree may lead to better overall environmental qualities. However, although environmental concerns are likely to affect the number of LCA studies as an implicit variable, this has not been empirically confirmed in our optimization model.13.
Susanne Freidberg 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2018,23(7):1410-1414
Purpose
Practitioners of life cycle assessment (LCA) acknowledge that more input from social scientists can help advance the cause of life cycle management (LCM). This commentary offers a social science perspective on a long-running question within LCA, namely, how the field should manage not only stakeholders’ values but also those of practitioners themselves.Methods
More than 60 interviews were conducted with LCA practitioners and their industry clients. Qualitative data were also collected through participant observation at several LCA and LCM conferences, a study of the field’s history, and extensive content and discourse analysis of LCA publications and online forums.Results and discussion
Results show that LCA practitioners’ values are informed partly by the knowledge acquired through their LCA work. At the same time, LCA standards and professional norms implicitly advise practitioners to keep those values out of their work as much as possible, so as not to compromise its apparent objectivity. By contrast, many social scientists contend openly that value-based judgments, based on “situated knowledge,” can actually enhance the rigor, accountability, and credibility of scientific assessments.Conclusions
LCA practitioners’ own situated knowledge justifies not only the value choices required by LCA but also their evaluative judgments of contemporary life cycle-based sustainability initiatives. This more critical voice could advance the goals of LCM while also boosting the credibility of LCA more generally.14.
Purpose
The well-to-wheel (WTW) methodology is widely used for policy support in road transport. It can be seen as a simplified life cycle assessment (LCA) that focuses on the energy consumption and CO2 emissions only for the fuel being consumed, ignoring other stages of a vehicle’s life cycle. WTW results are therefore different from LCA results. In order to close this gap, the authors propose a hybrid WTW+LCA methodology useful to assess the greenhouse gas (GHG) profiles of road vehicles.Methods
The proposed method (hybrid WTW+LCA) keeps the main hypotheses of the WTW methodology, but integrates them with LCA data restricted to the global warming potential (GWP) occurring during the manufacturing of the battery pack. WTW data are used for the GHG intensity of the EU electric mix, after a consistency check with the main life cycle impact (LCI) sources available in literature.Results and discussion
A numerical example is provided, comparing GHG emissions due to the use of a battery electric vehicle (BEV) with emissions from an internal combustion engine vehicle. This comparison is done both according to the WTW approach (namely the JEC WTW version 4) and the proposed hybrid WTW+LCA method. The GHG savings due to the use of BEVs calculated with the WTW-4 range between 44 and 56 %, while according to the hybrid method the savings are lower (31–46 %). This difference is due to the GWP which arises as a result of the manufacturing of the battery pack for the electric vehicles.Conclusions
The WTW methodology used in policy support to quantify energy content and GHG emissions of fuels and powertrains can produce results closer to the LCA methodology by adopting a hybrid WTW+LCA approach. While evaluating GHG savings due to the use of BEVs, it is important that this method considers the GWP due to the manufacturing of the battery pack.15.
Dieuwertje L. Schrijvers Philippe Loubet Guido Sonnemann 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2016,21(7):976-993
Purpose
Multifunctionality in life-cycle assessment (LCA) is solved with allocation, for which many different procedures are available. Lack of sufficient guidance and difficulties to identify the correct allocation approach cause a large number of combinations of methods to exist in scientific literature. This paper reviews allocation procedures for recycling situations, with the aim to identify a systematic approach to apply allocation.Methods
Assumptions and definitions for the most important terms related to multifunctionality and recycling in LCA are given. The most relevant allocation procedures are identified from literature. These procedures are expressed in mathematical formulas and schemes and arranged in a systematic framework based on the underlying objectives and assumptions of the procedures.Results and discussion
If the LCA goal asks for an attributional approach, multifunctionality can be solved by applying system expansion—i.e. including the co-functions in the functional unit—or partitioning. The cut-off approach is a form of partitioning, attributing all the impacts to the functional unit. If the LCA goal asks for a consequential approach, substitution is applied, for which three methods are identified: the end-of-life recycling method and the waste mining method, which are combined in the 50/50 method. We propose to merge these methods in a new formula: the market price-based substitution method. The inclusion of economic values and maintaining a strict separation between attributional and consequential LCA are considered to increase realism and consistency of the LCA method.Conclusions and perspectives
We identified the most pertinent allocation procedures—for recycling as well as co-production and energy recovery—and expressed them in mathematical formulas and schemes. Based on the underlying objectives of the allocation procedures, we positioned them in a systematic and consistent framework, relating the procedures to the LCA goal definition and an attributional or consequential approach. We identified a new substitution method that replaces the three existing methods in consequential LCA. Further research should test the validity of the systematic framework and the market price-based substitution method by means of case studies.16.
William Finnegan Mingjia Yan Nicholas M. Holden Jamie Goggins 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2018,23(9):1773-1787
Purpose
Cheese is one of the world’s most widely consumed dairy products and its popularity is ever growing. However, as concerns for the environmental impact of industries increase, products like cheese, which have a significant environmental impact, may lose their popularity. A commonly used technique to assess the environmental impact of a product is life cycle assessment (LCA). In this paper, a state-of-the-art review of LCA studies on the environmental impact of cheese production is presented.Methods
Sixteen LCA studies, which explored the impact from the production of a variety of cheese types (fresh, mature and semi-hard) were examined and discussed. The four stages of the LCA were examined and the range of results of selected environmental impact categories (global warming potential, acidification potential and eutrophication potential) were detailed and discussed.Results and discussion
For each of these environmental impact categories, raw milk production was consistently found to be the most significant contributor to the total impact, which was followed by processing. It was found that allocation between cheese and its by-products was crucial in determining the impact of cheese production and standardisation or guidelines may be needed. Very little information relating to wastewater treatment system and processes were reported and this leads to inaccurate environmental impact modelling relating to these aspects of the manufacture of cheese. Very few studies included the design of packaging in terms of reducing food waste, which may significantly contribute to the overall environmental impact.Conclusions
As raw milk production was found to have the greatest contribution to environmental impact, mitigation strategies at farm-level, particularly in relation to enteric fermentation and manure management, need to be implemented. Additionally, based on the literature, there is a suggestion that fresh cheese has less of an environmental impact than semi-hard cheeses, particularly when examining direct energy consumption. However, there needs to be more case studies investigated to justify this statement.17.
Matthew Brander 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2016,21(12):1816-1821
Purpose
The purposes of this commentary are to further an on-going debate concerning the appropriate form of land use baseline for attributional life cycle assessment (LCA) and to respond to a number of arguments advanced by Soimakallio (Int J Life Cycle Assess 20:1364–1375, 2016). The commentary also seeks to clarify the conceptual nature of attributional LCA.Methods
The overarching approach for resolving the question of the appropriate form of land use baseline for attributional LCA is to clarify what attributional LCA is seeking to represent, i.e. methodological questions can only be resolved if it is clear what the method is seeking to do. An illustrative example is used to explore the different results produced by ‘natural regeneration’ and ‘natural’ baselines.Results and discussion
It is proposed that attributional LCA should be conceptualised as an inventory of anthropogenic impacts, conceptually akin to other forms of environmental inventory, such as national GHG inventories. The use of natural regeneration baselines is not consistent with this conceptualisation of attributional LCA, and such baselines necessitate further ad hoc or arbitrary adjustments, such as arbitrary temporal windows or the inconsistent treatment of natural emissions.Conclusions
The use of natural regeneration baselines may be motivated by the impulse to make attributional LCA both an inventory-type method and an assessment of system-wide change. Pulling attributional LCA in two different directions at once results in a conceptually and methodologically incoherent method. The solution is to recognise attributional LCA as an inventory-type method, which therefore has distinct but complementary uses to consequential LCA, which is an assessment of system-wide change.18.
Dorota Burchart-Korol Pavlina Pustejovska Agata Blaut Simona Jursova Jerzy Korol 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2018,23(11):2165-2177
Purpose
The purpose of the study was to perform a comparative life cycle assessment of current and future electricity generation systems in the Czech Republic and Poland. The paper also outlines the main sources of environmental impact for the different impact categories for the electricity generation technologies analyzed. The analyses covered the years 2000–2050, and were conducted within the framework of the international programme Interreg V-A Czech Republic-Poland, Microprojects Fund 2014–2020 in the Euroregion Silesia.Methods
Environmental assessment was done using the life cycle assessment (LCA) and ReCiPe Midpoint and Endpoint methods, which allowed the presentation of different categories of environmental impact and damage. The LCA was based on ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, using SimaPro 8.2.3 software with the Ecoinvent 3.2 database. The analyses cover both the current electricity production structures in the Czech Republic and Poland, and the projected energy production.Results and discussion
The LCA analyses performed for the energy systems under consideration in the Czech Republic and Poland enabled a comparative analysis of current and forecast energy systems in these countries, as well as identification of the main sources of environmental impact. Comparative analysis of the LCA results showed that current and future electricity generation systems in Poland caused higher environmental impact there, than in the Czech Republic.Conclusions
The assessment of the life cycle of electricity sources showed that the main determinant of the negative impact on the environment of energy systems in both Poland and the Czech Republic was the consumption of solid fuels, and in particular, the consumption of lignite. It is important to highlight that this is the first attempt of a comparative LCA of electricity production in the Czech Republic and Poland. This is also the first approach that contains analyses of the life cycle assessment of both present and future energy systems. The economic assessment and eco-efficiency of current and future electricity generation systems in European Union countries will be addressed in future research.19.
Purpose
Regional life-cycle assessment (LCA) is gaining an increasing attention among LCA scholars and practitioners. Here, we present a generalized computational structure for regional LCA, discuss in-depth the major challenges facing the field, and point to a direction in which we believe regional LCA should be headed.Methods
Using an example, we first demonstrate that when there is regional heterogeneity (be it due to environmental conditions or technologies), average data would be inadequate for estimating the life-cycle impacts of a product produced in a specific region or even that of an average product produced in many regions. And when there is such regional heterogeneity, an understanding of how regions are connected through commodity flows is important to the accuracy of regional LCA estimates. Then, we present a generalized computational structure for regional LCA that takes into account interregional commodity flows, can evaluate various cases of regional differentiation, and can account for multiple impact categories simultaneously. In so doing, we show what kinds of data are required for this generalized framework of regional LCA.Results and discussion
We discuss the major challenges facing regional LCA in terms of data requirements and computational complexity, and their implications for the choice of an optimal regional scale (i.e., the number of regions delineated within the geographic boundary studied).Conclusions
We strongly recommend scholars from LCI and LCIA to work together and choose a spatial scale that not only adequately captures environmental characteristics but also allows inventory data to be reasonably compiled or estimated.20.
Mwema Felix 《The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment》2016,21(12):1825-1830