Classification in LCA: Building of a coherent family of criteria

There is a very close analogy between Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and decision making tools such as the multicritcria approach. LCA is a particular model of a multicriteria decision making tool which is applied to environmental data. The similarities between LCA and multicriteria decision making tools are highlighted. The strict precision of multicriteria decision making tools is used to improve classification. For this, six dimensions (or axes of significance) of environmental impacts can be distinguished. The aim is to build a coherent family of environmental data from these considerations. Rules for the building of this family are proposed.