Insights on the Use of Hybrid Life Cycle Assessment for Environmental Footprinting

Establishing a comprehensive environmental footprint that indicates resource use and environmental release hotspots in both direct and indirect operations can help companies formulate impact reduction strategies as part of overall sustainability efforts. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a useful approach for achieving these objectives. For most companies, financial data are more readily available than material and energy quantities, which suggests a hybrid LCA approach that emphasizes use of economic input‐output (EIO) LCA and process‐based energy and material flow models to frame and develop life cycle emission inventories resulting from company activities. We apply a hybrid LCA framework to an inland marine transportation company that transports bulk commodities within the United States. The analysis focuses on global warming potential, acidification, particulate matter emissions, eutrophication, ozone depletion, and water use. The results show that emissions of greenhouse gases, sulfur, and particulate matter are mainly from direct activities but that supply chain impacts are also significant, particularly in terms of water use. Hotspots were identified in the production, distribution, and use of fuel; the manufacturing, maintenance, and repair of boats and barges; food production; personnel air transport; and solid waste disposal. Results from the case study demonstrate that the aforementioned footprinting framework can provide a sufficiently reliable and comprehensive baseline for a company to formulate, measure, and monitor its efforts to reduce environmental impacts from internal and supply chain operations.     

Flows of Chemical Risk Information in the Consumer Paint Product Chain

In this study the flows of chemical risk information for paint as a consumer product were investigated from a product chain perspective. The main method of research involved semi‐structured interviews with Swedish manufacturers of paint and chemicals. In addition, retailers and consumers were interviewed. The flows of chemical risk information between actors within (e.g., manufacturers, retailers, and consumers) and outside (e.g., industry associations and regulators) the paint product chain are described. Because the European chemical legislation REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of CHemicals) plays a large role in the management of chemical risk information at companies, some consequences of REACH on actors in the paint product chain are described. Examples of such consequences are that importing of chemicals from non–European Union (EU) countries may be discouraged and that some low‐volume chemicals may no longer be produced. However, manufacturers do not yet see these consequences as impediments to innovation. The results of this work show that chemical risk information is most comprehensive during the manufacturing steps of the product chain. This is due not only to tradition and industry initiatives, but also to REACH and other legislation. The results also illustrate the need for evaluation of how chemical risk information is used in different contexts and the importance of directing the right information at the right target group. Following legislative development, more specialized information is required in the safety data sheet (SDS), and because of this many manufacturers find it necessary to create simplified safety sheets that make the most pertinent safety and hazard information easily accessible to individuals that handle the chemicals in their factories. The study found that in creating the simplified safety sheets, the content and use of chemical risk information is evaluated and adjusted for presentation to this particular target group. It is evident that the Swedish Paint and Printing Ink Makers Association plays an important role in the interpretation of legal requirements and even in agreements for providing information that exceeds legal requirements.     

Abiotic Resource Depletion Different perceptions of the problem with mineral deposits

Goal, Scope and Background The goal of the present paper is to demonstrate how environmental product declarations (EPDs) are developed based on a set of product category rules (PCRs) in accordance with the requirements in the ISO 14025-standard. This is demonstrated by examples from the furniture industry in Norway, where several case models are evaluated. To ease the capability of developing EPDs in this industry, a database with specific environmental data for materials in furniture is developed. The database is used to produce the LCA for selected furniture models, and further, the database is the backbone of a data-assistance tool used to create the EPDs. Methods The LCA-data are produced based on traditional LCA-methodology. The PCR is based on a stakeholder analysis and the proposed methodology in the ISO 14025-standard. The EPDs developed so far, are results of close collaboration between companies and research centres in the Nordic countries. For the verification of the EPDs, auditing methodologies are used as a part of the audit of the companies' environmental management systems (EMS). Results and Conclusion Based on a hearing of a set of suggested PCRs, a consensus document for seating accommodation is developed. This is further the model for how to develop PCR-documents for all types of furniture, for example sleeping accommodations. Likewise, the database shall contain the most important data for the parts of a furniture model. Within the goal of the project period, EPDs will be developed for 80% of Norwegian furniture. The verification of the EPDs is done as a part of the certification procedures of EMS in accordance with the ISO 14001. Recommendation and Perspective The results presented in the paper are mainly for the pilot models in the project. However, the results will be further tested and the data-tool will be developed as a part of a product design tool where environmental requirements will be combined with quality requirements. The product design tool will be implemented in the furniture industry. Information on how to use EPDs in public purchasing will also be a part of future work.     

Life Cycle Attribute Assessment

Practitioners of life cycle assessment (LCA) have recently turned their attention to social issues in the supply chain. The United Nations life cycle initiative's social LCA task force has completed its guidelines for social life cycle assessment of products, and awareness of managing upstream corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues has risen due to the growing popularity of LCA. This article explores one approach to assessing social issues in the supply chain—life cycle attribute assessment (LCAA). The approach was originally proposed by Gregory Norris in 2006, and we present here a case study. LCAA builds on the theoretical structure of environmental LCA to construct a supply chain model. Instead of calculating quantitative impacts, however, it asks the question “What percentage of my supply chain has attribute X?” X may represent a certification from a CSR body or a self‐defined attribute, such as “is locally produced.” We believe LCAA may serve as an aid to discussions of how current and popular CSR indicators may be integrated into a supply chain model. The case study demonstrates the structure of LCAA, which is very similar to that of traditional environmental LCA. A labor hours data set was developed as a satellite matrix to determine number of worker hours in a greenhouse tomato supply. Data from the Quebec tomato producer were used to analyze how the company performed on eight sample LCAA indicators, and conclusions were drawn about where the company should focus CSR efforts.     

Environmental certification

Environmental certification of companies is a promising tool for steering the economy in a more environmentally sound direction. It can also be put in a chain perspective so that companies which constitute a production-consumption chain will conclude agreements between each other with respect to their environmental performance. A legal basis is formed by the EMS of ISO 14001 and the EMAS directive of the EU. However, apart from procedural aspects, substantive aspects should also be included. The major steering factor consists of the image of a company. This in contrast to product policy, where the major steering factor lies in the purchase behaviour of consumers. The two types of life cycle approaches should complement each other.     

Longitudinal Analysis of the Eco‐Design Management Standardization Process in Furniture Companies

This article discusses how eco‐design management standards have been adopted and the environmental and economic results that have been obtained by the Spanish furniture manufacturers. This is precisely the industry sector in Spain where the dissemination of eco‐design standards has been most important. Using multiple case‐study methodology, the research has shown that, in three companies, more than 90% of the environmental impact of the companies’ products occurs within the manufacturing phase. Companies have implemented tools for life cycle assessment with eco‐indicators values that allow them to assess complex products and evaluate their significant environmental impacts at each stage. The environmental strategies of these companies are based on the continuous improvement of the internal processes and the review and monitoring of their activities. In this approach, the proper choice of materials and the environmental management of the supply chain are the main problems for companies. The outcomes achieved by the companies included some improvements, such as a greater control of product management and a reduction in operating costs, that have allowed them to obtain competitive advantages. Moreover, the adoption of standard management has enabled the companies to drive innovation of products, improve the image of companies and their products, significantly reduce the environmental impact of their products, and adapt to new, more demanding environmental laws and regulations.     

Greenhouse gas emissions of the production chain behind consumption of products in Austria: Development and application of a product‐ and technology‐specific approach

Globalization has been one main driver affecting our whole economy. Thus, greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) associated with imports and exports should get addressed in addition to the national emission inventory according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is focused on territorial emissions only. To enable a correct calculation for imports and exports and to find the most emission‐intensive products and their origin, a product‐ and technology‐specific approach would be favorable which has not been applied up to now. This article addresses this research gap in developing and applying such an approach to calculate the GHGs behind consumption of products in Austria. It is based on physical flows combined with life‐cycle‐based emission factors and emission intensities derived from sector‐ and country‐specific energy mix, for calculating all emissions behind the production chain (resources to final products) of products consumed in Austria. The results have shown that consumption of products in Austria leads to about 60% more emissions than those of the national inventory and that the main part of these emissions comes from the provision of products. The most emission‐intensive products are coming from the chemical and the metal industry. In particular, imports are the main driver of these emissions and are more emission intensive than those produced in Austria. As a result, it is necessary to look at practical measures to reduce emissions along the production chain not only in Austria, but especially abroad as well.     

Evaluation and Allocation of Greenhouse Gas Reductions in Industrial Symbiosis

Industrial symbiosis (IS) exchanges have been recognized to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, though methods for quantification of GHG emissions in IS exchanges are varied, and no standardized methods are available. This article proposes a practical approach to quantify total and allocated GHG emissions from IS exchanges by integrating the GHG protocol and life cycle assessment. The proposed method expands the system boundaries to include all IS companies, and the functional flow is set to be the sum of the main products. The total impact of a company is allocated to the main product. Three by‐product impact allocation methods of cutoff, avoidance, and 50/50 are proposed, and the total and distributed impacts of the IS systems in an industrial park are theoretically derived. The proposed method was tested to quantify GHG reduction in a real IS exchange developed between Korea Zinc (a zinc smelter) and Hankook Paper (a paper mill company) in the Ulsan Eco‐Industrial Park initiative. The total reduction of GHG emissions in this IS exchange, 60,522 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, was the same in the GHG protocol, whereas GHG distribution between two companies depended on the allocation method. Given that the reduction of GHG emissions from IS exchanges is the product of the collaboration of giving companies and receiving companies, the 50/50 allocation method is best from an equivalent‐responsibility and benefit‐sharing perspective. However, this study suggests a more practical implementation approach based on a flexible and negotiable method of allocating the total GHG reduction between stakeholders.     

Information sharing in a competitive supply chain with capacity constraint

This paper studies the incentives for vertical demand information sharing in a two-echelon supply chain formed by many downstream retailers and one upstream manufacturer with a limited production capacity. The retailers are engaged in a Cournot competition, and endowed with some private information about the demand. The total order of all the retailers may exceed the manufacturer’s capacity, and in that case, an allocation strategy is required. We show that a discriminated allocation strategy will encourage the retailers to share their demand information. We also find the condition under which full information sharing can be reached. Furthermore, we prove that when the manufacturer cannot satisfy the total order of all the retailers, social welfare and consumer surplus will be locked by the capacity.     

A Framework for Social Life Cycle Impact Assessment (10 pp)

Goal, Scope and Background To enhance the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) as a tool in business decision-making, a methodology for Social life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is being developed. Social LCA aims at facilitating companies to conduct business in a socially responsible manner by providing information about the potential social impacts on people caused by the activities in the life cycle of their product. The development of the methodology has been guided by a business perspective accepting that companies, on the one hand, have responsibility for the people affected by their business activities, but, on the other hand, must also be able to compete and make profit in order to survive in the marketplace. Methods A combined, bottom-up and top-down approach has been taken in the development of the Social LCIA. Universal consensus documents regarding social issues as well as consideration for the specific business context of companies has guided the determination of damage categories, impact categories and category indicators. Results Discussion, and Conclusion. The main results are the following: (1) Impacts on people are naturally related to the conduct of the companies engaged in the life cycle rather than to the individual industrial processes, as is the case in Environmental LCA. Inventory analysis is therefore focused on the conduct of the companies engaged in the life cycle. A consequence of this view is that a key must be determined for relating the social profiles of the companies along the life cycle to the product. This need is not present in Environmental LCA, where we base the connection on the physical link which exists between process and product. (2) Boundaries of the product system are determined with respect to the influence that the product manufacturer exerts over the activities in the product chain. (3) A two-layer Social LCA method with an optional and an obligatory set of impact categories is suggested to ensure both societal and company relevance of the method. The obligatory set of impact categories encompasses the minimum expectations to a company conducting responsible business. (4) A new area of protection, Human dignity and Well-being, is defined and used to guide the modelling of impact chains. (5) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights serves as normative basis for Social LCA, together with local or country norms based on socio-economic development goals of individual countries. The International Labour Organisation's Conventions and Recommendations, and the Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy, support development of the impact pathway top-down, starting from the normative basis. (6) The obligatory part of Social LCA addresses the main stakeholder groups, employees, local community and society. Recommendations and Outlook Social LCA is still in its infancy and a number of further research tasks within this new area are identified.     

Fast Carbon Footprinting for Large Product Portfolios

Publicly Available Specification 2050‐2011 (PAS 2050), the Green House Gas Product Protocol (GHGPP) standard and forthcoming guideline 14067 from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) have helped to propel carbon footprinting from a subdiscipline of life cycle assessment (LCA) to the mainstream. However, application of carbon footprinting to large portfolios of many distinct products and services is immensely resource intensive. Even if achieved, it often fails to inform company‐wide carbon reduction strategies because footprint data are disjointed or don't cover the whole portfolio. We introduce a novel approach to generate standard‐compliant product carbon footprints (CFs) for companies with large portfolios at a fraction of previously required time and expertise. The approach was developed and validated on an LCA dataset covering 1,137 individual products from a global packaged consumer goods company. Three novel techniques work in concert in a single approach that enables practitioners to calculate thousands of footprints virtually simultaneously: (i) a uniform data structure enables footprinting all products and services by looping the same algorithm; (ii) concurrent uncertainty analysis guides practitioners to gradually improve the accuracy of only those data that materially impact the results; and (iii) a predictive model generates estimated emission factors (EFs) for materials, thereby eliminating the manual mapping of a product or service's inventory to EF databases. These autogenerated EFs enable non‐LCA experts to calculate approximate CFs and alleviate resource constraints for companies embarking on large‐scale product carbon footprinting. We discuss implementation roadmaps for companies, including further road‐testing required to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach for other product portfolios, limitations, and future improvements of the fast footprinting methodology.     

Corporate and Product Carbon Footprint under Compound Hybrid Analysis: Application to a Spanish Timber Company

The European Union (EU) is advancing steadily toward the stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Various sectors are now obliged to make reductions, and new policies based on the carbon footprint are being encouraged. However, voluntary reporting of so‐called scope 3 emissions is hindering successful implementation of these policies. In this study, we present a tiered hybrid analysis to report emissions according to the ISO/TR 14069 standards and to obtain complete measures of scope 3 emissions. A process analysis for scope 1 and scope 2 emissions is complemented with a multiregional input‐output analysis for upstream scope 3 emissions. This novel approach is applied to the case study of a Spanish timber company. Its total carbon footprint in 2011 was 783,660 kilograms of carbon‐dioxide equivalent, of which 88% correspond to scope 3 emissions. These emissions are globally distributed; 71% are from European countries, followed by 8% from emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, Australia, and Turkey), 5% from China, and, finally, 16% from the rest of the world. We identify and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this novel approach, the European implementation of which could be highly effective in reducing global carbon emissions.     

Entity Normalization in Life Cycle Assessment: Hybrid Schemes Applied to a Transportation Agency Case Study

Government agencies, companies, and other entities are using environmental assessments, like life cycle assessment (LCA), as an input to decision‐making processes. Communicating the esoteric results of an LCA to these decision makers can present challenges, and interpretation aids are commonly provided to increase understanding. One such method is normalizing results as a means of providing context for interpreting magnitudes of environmental impacts. Normalization is mostly carried out by relating the environmental impacts of a product (or process) under study to those of another product or a spatial reference area (e.g., the United States). This research is based on the idea that decision makers might also benefit from normalization that considers comparisons to their entity's (agency, company, organization, etc.) total impacts to provide additional meaning and aid in comprehension. Two hybrid normalization schemes have been developed, which include aspects of normalization to both spatially based and entity‐based impacts. These have been named entity‐overlaid and entity‐accentuated normalization, and the schemes allow for performance‐based planning or emphasizing environmental impact types that are most relevant to an entity's operational profile, respectively. A hypothetical case study is presented to demonstrate these schemes, which uses environmental data from a U.S. transportation agency as the basis for entity normalization factors. Results of this case study illustrate how entity‐related references may be developed, and how this additional information may enhance the presentation of LCA results using the hybrid normalization schemes.     

A framework for increasing the availability of life cycle inventory data based on the role of multinational companies

Purpose

The aim of the paper is to assess the role and effectiveness of a proposed novel strategy for Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data collection in the food sector and associated supply chains. The study represents one of the first of its type and provides answers to some of the key questions regarding the data collection process developed, managed and implemented by a multinational food company across the supply chain.

Methods

An integrated LCI data collection process for confectionery products was developed and implemented by Nestlé, a multinational food company. Some of the key features includes (1) management and implementation by a multinational food company; (2) types of roles to manage, provide and facilitate data exchange; (3) procedures to identify key products, suppliers and customers; (4) LCI questionnaire and cover letter and (5) data quality management based on the pedigree matrix. Overall, the combined features in an integrated framework provide a new way of thinking about the collection of LCI data from the perspective of a multinational food company.

Results and discussion

The integrated LCI collection framework spanned across 5 months and resulted in 87 new LCI datasets for confectionery products from raw material, primary resource use, emission and waste release data collected from suppliers across 19 countries. The data collected was found to be of medium to high quality compared with secondary data. However, for retailers and waste service companies, only partially completed questionnaires were returned. Some of the key challenges encountered during the collection and creation of data included lack of experience, identifying key actors, communication and technical language, commercial compromise, confidentiality protection and complexity of multi-tiered supplier systems. A range of recommendations are proposed to reconcile these challenges which include standardisation of environmental data from suppliers, concise and targeted LCI questionnaires and visualising complexity through drawings.

Conclusions

The integrated LCI data collection process and strategy has demonstrated the potential role of a multinational company to quickly engage and act as a strong enabler to unlock latent data for various aspects of the confectionery supply chain. Overall, it is recommended that the research findings serve as the foundations to transition towards a standardised procedure which can practically guide other multinational companies to considerably increase the availability of LCI data.

     

森林伐后碳减排核算方法演进与展望

森林生态系统的碳汇功能对我国完成“双碳目标”具有独特意义,其中森林伐后碳减排,包括木质林产品全生命周期内的碳储和替代减排,是增强林业中长期碳减排能力的重要路径。当前我国森林伐后碳减排研究尚落后于欧美等发达国家,不利于我国林业国家碳库模型的构建以及更好地指导固碳增汇的森林管理策略。系统回顾了近30余年国内外学术界关于森林伐后碳减排方法学的演进动态,总结了碳循环和碳减排模型的核心参数,为推进我国森林伐后碳减排研究提供理论基础。学术界近30余年涉及方法模型的主要成果如下：(1)建立并完善了立足于木材采伐国的生产法和简单分解法,以及立足于终端木质林产品消费国的储量变化法和大气流动法两类方法框架;(2)形成了体系化的碳储计算模型,并在包括发达国家和主要发展中国家取得了大量实测数据和参数积累;(3)初步完成了替代减排分析模型和基于情景设定的分析框架,并在以欧美国家为主体的部分地区进行了应用。在梳理历史文献的基础上,本研究认为当前存在的方法缺陷包括：第一,既有依靠实测调研获取数据的成本过高,限制了研究国家的深度和广度,尤其导致广大发展中国家研究较为薄弱;第二,当前方法框架在追踪木质林产品贸易流方面较...     

Performance evaluation of an analytical laboratory the laboratory product model

Background, Intention, Goal and Scope  The analytical laboratory is traditionally considered to be a service provider. This has resulted in laboratory environmental management being considered mostly from a pollution prevention and waste minimization perspective. There is a recognized need to view environmental performance of a laboratory service provider from a broader perspective. This broader perspective is inclusive of sampling, analysis and the potential for impacts to arise from the use of output information products. A generic methodology for the measurement and benchmarking of the overall environmental performance of an analytical laboratory and its outputs using the Laboratory Product Model (LPM) is described. Environmental performance indicators, relating to inputs and processing are proposed. Objectives  The project seeks to broaden the focus of environmental performance away from the individual analytical unit processes to a more encompassing ‘cradle-to-grave’ approach incorporating sample collection and results reporting and use. To support this approach, a functional unit of output for a laboratory has to be defined. Methods  A life cycle assessment approach, incorporating life cycle inventory considerations, is applied within the LPM conceptual framework. Results and Discussion  This approach facilitates a shift in thinking from laboratory service to the life cycle of laboratory product inputs and outputs. It enables LCA methodologies to be applied to environmental performance through the application of the LPM. The definition of a laboratory product output facilitates benchmarking and comparison of laboratories. Conclusions  The LPM approach assigns a critical role to the laboratory for the sustainability of the laboratory operations from sample collection, through analysis to the use of its product outputs. Recommendations and Outlook  The application of the LPM offers a top down approach for the evaluation of the environmental performance of an analytical laboratory. It is expected to provide a useful tool for assessing and benchmarking the environmental performance of analytical laboratories.     

Sustainable Global Agrifood Supply Chains: Exploring the Barriers

The article investigates the factors that make businesses postpone integrating the performance dimension of sustainability in global agrifood supply chains. Based on literature‐based conceptual reasoning, the article conceptualizes a double company lens distinguishing between substantial supply chain management and mere public relations endeavors as a major obstacle for businesses pursuing comprehensive supply chain performance in global agrifood chains. We point out that many supply chain performance attributes represent, in fact, credence attributes that cannot be verified by the consumer, hence entailing an information asymmetry between the company and its consumers. Rational business responses to this situation tend to focus on symbolic actions and communication efforts by means of sustainability reports and other brand‐enhancing marketing tools that may be decoupled from substantial operations and supply chain improvements. The research propositions developed have partly been corroborated by a content analysis of annual and sustainability reports of four major agrifood companies (Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, and Mondelez International). The conceptual arguments and empirical analysis presented in the article may serve as the basis for managers and academics to develop innovative inter‐ and intraorganizational business processes that reconcile trade‐offs between various agrifood supply chain performance dimensions, thus pushing the performance frontier outward, and that provide the necessary transparency for overcoming the currently adverse setting of incentives inherent in the food production, processing, retailing, and consumption system.     

On the possibilities to apply the result from an LCA disclosed to public

Aim, Scope and background  Given the communication limitation of a damage-oriented approach, the question addressed in this paper is how normalisation can be developed instead. Normalisation of product service systems without value choices is, in accordance to ISO 14042, suitable for external communication. Reason normalisation approaches use a geographically-defined baseline year of emissions, optionally combined with politically established target emissions (Guinée 2002, Stranddorf et al. 2001). In contradiction to these approaches, this paper aims to draw up the general structure of an alternative normalisation procedure. The normalisation procedure suggested here is based on environmental quality objectives (EQO), in order to streamline the result to include as few output parameters as possible, without compromising the scientific robustness of the method. Main Features  This article describes a normalisation procedure based on environmental quality objectives. Comparison between this approach and a damage-oriented approach is conducted. The relevant working area concerning dose and effect is evaluated. Then a discussion is conducted focusing on the trade-off necessary to achieve an integrated category indicator, covering the following issues; model reliability, user applicability and the unambiguously of the result. Result  A damage-oriented approach will have to take into account all the defined consequences from all impact categories that affect the safeguards in parallel. In other words, each impact category indicator and its potential effects on all safeguards must be evaluated and accounted for. In the case where a single category indicator cannot be found without utilising value choices, a number of category indicators will then have to constitute an intermediate category indicator result, where weighting must be applied in order to streamline the result. In contrast to the above approach, the suggested normalisation procedure utilises the precautionary principle with respect to the essential EQO in order to achieve a category indicator result, called a critical load category indicator result. In practice, this means that the number of figures in an LCIA-profile based on critical load will always be the same as the number of impact categories. Conclusions  The suggested EQO normalisation procedure forms a set of critical loads per impact category, where each is defined by a critical load function where linearity is defined between a zero load and the critical load. This procedure will affect the temporal resolution and the field of application of the LCIA method. The positive aspect is that the suggested normalisation procedure renders the method applicable for long-lived products like, for example, buildings or other infrastructures. This aspect is gained by reducing the damage-oriented resolution. Consequently, for long-lived products where the main environmental loads will appear in the future, it is hard to assess by a damage-oriented LCIA method (if all boundary conditions are not assumed to be fixed). The EQO normalisation method will, in this respect, improve the overall reliability of the outcome of an LCA when long-lived products are assessed. For short-lived products, adequate boundary conditions can be achieved, and for this reason a damage-oriented approach will have the possibility to address current consequences. Nevertheless, a damage-oriented approach working area is not applicable beneath thresholds unlike the EQO normalisation procedure. The most effective decision support of short-lived products is therefore achieved when both approaches are applied. Outlook  A complementary paper will be produced where the described normalisation procedure is exemplified in a case study, with special interest on assessment of chemical substances.     

Efficient Information Visualization in LCA

Background, Goal and Scope  A complete life cycle assessment (LCA) always requires several itemizations of goal/scope definitions, inventory analysis and impact analysis. This requires the retrieval and collection of inventory information on all processes with which a product or any part of it comes into either direct or indirect contact. As a result, the data required for LCA is vast, uncertain and, therefore, complex. Up until now, unfortunately, and as far as the authors are aware, there has not been much computer-assisted aid available from any of the systems currently used in either academia or industry to support any life cycle (LC) related data representation, other than the traditional methods of tables, xy-graphs, bar charts, pie charts and various 3-D variants of those which are difficult for humans to interpret. Main Features  Benefiting from the synergy of latest developments in both visualization techniques and computer technology, the authors are able to introduce a new information representation approach based on glyphs. These exploit the human perceptual capability for distinguishing spatial structures and shapes presented in different colors and textures. Within this approach, issues of representing life cycle related information at a glance, filtering out data so as to reduce the information load, and representation of data features, such as uncertainty and estimated errors, are targeted. Results  Advanced information visualization, the process which transforms and maps data to a visual representation, employs the glyphs rendered here to create abstract representations of multi-dimensional data sets. Different parameters describing spatial, geometrical and retinal properties of such glyphs, and defining their position, orientation, shape, color, etc., can be used to encode more information in a comprehensible format, thus allowing multiple values to be encoded in those glyph parameters. The natural function of glyphs, linking (mapped) data within a known context with the attributes that in turn control their visualization, is believed capable of providing sufficient functionality to interactively support designers and LCA experts performing life cycle inventory (LCI) information analysis so that they can operate faster and more efficiently than at present. Conclusions  Within this paper, the first of a small series on efficient information visualization in LCA, the motivation for and essential basic principles of the approach are introduced and discussed. With this technique, the essential characteristics of data, relationships, patterns, trends, etc. can be represented in a much better structured and compact manner, thus rendering them clearer and more meaningful. It is hoped that a continuing interest in this work combined with an improved collaboration with industrial partners will eventually provide the grounds for translating this novel approach into an efficient and reliable tool enhancing applied LCA in practice on a broader base. Outlook  More technical details of the approach and its implementation will be introduced and discussed in the following papers, and examples will be offered demonstrating its application and first experimental translation into practice.     

Functional priorities in LCA and design for environment

Aim, Scope and Background  The interest in environmental questions has increased enormously during the last decade. Environmental protection has become an issue of strategic importance within the manufacturing industry and many companies are now working in the field of Design for Environment (DFE). The main purpose of DFE is to create products and services for achieving a sustainable society. Designers are widely believed to have a key role in adapting products to a sustainable society and one of the major instruments in the context of Design for Environment is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). However, product development creates particular challenges for incorporating environmental issues that combine functional and environmental assessment. A natural and important part of product design is to define and analyse the functions of the product. Consequently, the functional unit in LCA is a core issue in DFE. Most recent research in DFE has focused on how to reduce the environmental impact of products throughout their life-cycle by addressing environmental aspects, while little attention has been given to the functionality of the product. Additionally, early product development phases, so called re-think phases, are considered to have the influence on major changes in products in general. These phases have thus the highest potential for changing products and product systems towards a sustainable development. Main Features  This paper discusses an extended functional representation in design for environment methods to evaluate sustainable design solutions, especially in early (re-think) phases of product design. Based on engineering-design science and several case studies, a concept has been developed describing how functional preferences can be visualised in design for environment and product development. In addition, the functional unit in LCA is discussed. The concept is called Functional Profile (FP) and is additionally exemplified in a case study on radio equipment. Discussion  The new functional characterisation concept helps identify functional priorities in design for environment. The Functional Profile is a structured, systematic and creative concept for identifying the necessary functions of a new product. The FP is envisioned to complement existing design for environment methods, not to replace them. Instead of being a product-development tool or method, the concept is an approach that increases understanding of inter-reactions between functional characteristics of products and their environmental characteristics, which furthermore facilitates trade-off decisions. One of the objectives behind the concept is to highlight the importance of balancing functional requirements and environmental impacts, presenting both the advantages and disadvantages of the product. Outlook  A second paper will be produced to complement the functional-environmental characterisation concept in early product development phase, presenting the environmental characterisation part and illustrating correlations between the functional and environmental sides.