9.1 Life cycle assessment  (Page 3/18)

In 1989, Robert Frosch&Nicholas Gallopoulos, who worked in the General Motors Research Laboratory, published an important analysis of this problem in Scientific American ( Frosch and Gallopoulos, 1989 ). Their paper was entitled “Strategies for Manufacturing” ; in it they posed a critical question: Why is it that human-designed manufacturing systems are so wasteful, but systems in nature produce little, if any, waste? Although there had been many studies on ways to minimize or prevent wastes, this was the first to seek a systemic understanding of what was fundamentally different about human systems in distinction to natural systems. The paper is widely credited with spawning the new field of Industrial Ecology, an applied science that studies material and energy flows through industrial systems. Industrial Ecology is concerned with such things as closing material loops (recycling and reuse), process and energy efficiency, organizational behavior, system costs, and social impacts of goods and services. A principle tool of Industrial Ecology is life cycle assessment.

Life cycle assessment basics

LCA is a systems methodology for compiling and evaluating information on materials and energy as they flow through a product or service manufacturing chain. It grew out of the needs of industry, in the early 1960s, to understand manufacturing systems, supply chains, and market behavior, and make choices among competing designs, processes, and products. It was also applied to the evaluation of the generation and emission of wastes from manufacturing activities. During the 1970s and 1980s general interest in LCA for environmental evaluation declined as the nation focused on the control of toxic substances and remediation of hazardous waste sites (see Chapters The Evolution of Environmental Policy in the United States and Modern Environmental Management ), but increasing concern about global impacts, particularly those associated with greenhouse gas emissions, saw renewed interest in the development of the LCA methodology and more widespread applications.

LCA is a good way to understand the totality of the environmental impacts and benefits of a product or service. The method enables researchers and practitioners to see where along the product chain material and energy are most intensively consumed and waste produced. It allows for comparisons with conventional products that may be displaced in commerce by new products, and helps to identify economic and environmental tradeoffs.

LCA can facilitate communication of risks and benefits to stakeholders and consumers (e.g. the “carbon footprint” of individual activities and life styles). Perhaps most importantly of all, LCA can help to prevent unintended consequences, such as creating solutions to problems that result in the transferal of environmental burdens from one area to another, or from one type of impact to another.