Life Cycle Assessments
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20 Terms
What is a life cycle assessment?
An assessment of the environmental impacts of a product throughout its life cycle.
What does LCA stand for?
Life Cycle Assessment.
What are the four main stages considered in an LCA?
Raw material extraction, manufacture, use and disposal.
Why is raw material extraction included in an LCA?
It can cause resource depletion, pollution and habitat damage.
Why is manufacturing included in an LCA?
It uses energy and materials and may produce emissions and waste.
Why is the use stage included in an LCA?
Products may consume energy or resources during their lifetime.
Why is disposal included in an LCA?
Disposal can cause pollution, landfill use or further emissions.
Why is transportation considered in an LCA?
Transport can consume fuel and produce greenhouse gas emissions.
What is the purpose of an LCA?
To compare the environmental impacts of products or processes.
What environmental factors may be assessed?
Energy use, water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and resource use.
Why are LCAs useful to manufacturers?
They can identify stages with high environmental impacts.
Why are LCAs useful to consumers?
They can help compare the environmental impacts of different products.
Why is it important to consider a product's entire life cycle?
A product with low impact at one stage may have high impacts elsewhere.
Why can LCAs be difficult to interpret?
Different environmental impacts are not always directly comparable.
What is a limitation of LCAs?
Some environmental impacts are difficult to quantify accurately.
Why can LCAs contain subjective judgements?
People may assign different importance to different environmental impacts.
Why can LCA results differ between studies?
Studies may use different data, assumptions and boundaries.
What is a system boundary in an LCA?
The processes and stages included in the assessment.
Why is choosing system boundaries important?
Excluding relevant stages can distort the comparison.
Why should LCA conclusions be treated critically?
Results depend on the quality of data and assumptions used.