Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Environmental assessments (Variants of life-cycles (Cradle-to-Gate, a…
Environmental assessments
Environmental impact assessment
, is a generalized term used to describe the procedure that ensures that the environmental implications of decisions are taken into account before the actual decision is made (HS2, New runway at heathrow and gatwick debate)
Instead of considering only specific elements of environmental impacts such as those resulting from the production phase, use or disposal phases, the whole life-cycle of the product or service are considered
Life cycle thinking
is about going beyond the traditional focus on production site and manufacturing processes but to include all the impacts of a product over its entire life-cycle (see beyond immediate impacts, both upstream and downstream in the supply chain in order to account for all impacts that you could cause)
What is a life-cycle
, it is the complete set of activities associated with the production and consumption of a product or service, includes raw materials, transport, manufacturing and who uses the product or service
Variants of life-cycles
Cradle-to-Gate
, a partical LCA from resource extraction (cradle) to the factory gate before the product is transported to the consumer
Cradle-to-Grave
, A full LCA from resource extraction (cradle) to use purchase and disposal phase (grave)
Cradle-to-Cradle
, Extension of Cradle-to-Grave in which the end-of-life of a product becomes a resource input into another supply chain thus creating a closed-loop or circular production system instead of linear
Well-to-Wheel
, this is a LCA variant for transportation fuel and consisting of extraction of the fuel to the point of fueling the vehicle
Life-cycle assessment
, is a tool for assessing environmental impacts of a product or service from cradle to grave, it enables an estimation of the cumulative environmental impacts resulting from all the stages in the product or service life-cycle
LCA is important because
Communication, Eco-labeling, Bench marking
Learning/exploration, identification if impacts hotspots. That is, pinpoints places where processes improvements can yield environmental impacts
Aides in decision making (Product/process design, purchasing)
Framework and guidelines of LCA
ISO 14044
, specifies requirements and provides guidelines for life cycle assessment
ISO 14040
, describes the principles and framework for life cycle assessment (LCA) including: definition of the goal and scope of the LCA,
Phases of LCA framework
Phase 2 (Life-cycle inventory, LCI)
, involves creating an inventory of flows from and to the product system. Inventory flows include inputs of water, energy, and raw materials, and releases to air, land, and water.
Phase 3 (Impact assessment)
, This phase of LCA is aimed at evaluating the significance of potential environmental impacts based on the LCI flow results. Elements include
(selection of impact categories, Classification stage which is aligning LCI results to impact categories , impact measurement which is expressing potential impacts
)
Phase 1 (Goal and scope definition)
An LCA starts with an explicit statement of the goal and scope of the study, which sets out the context of the study and explains how and to whom the results are to be communicated.
Phase 4 (Life Cycle Interpretation)
is a systematic technique to identify, quantify, check, and evaluate information from the results of the life cycle inventory and/or the life cycle impact assessment.