Life Cycle Analysis What is LCA good for? Jeremy Faludi www.faludidesign.com www.projectfrog.com www.worldchanging.com 1 2 What Is Your LCA For? How Far Do You Want To Go? What is LCA good for? Telling the backstory Identifying the biggest impacts Materials, processes, components, systems Enables informed decision-making and company policies Establishing a baseline for improvement Guiding product & process development Scenario modeling Supporting product certification 3 4
Do You Trust The Analysis? Arlene Birt s Background Stories Product-specific data vs. industry avg. Prepared by experienced practitioner ISO 14040, SCS-002 (emerging) 3rd-party verified images courtesy backgroundstories.com 5 6 Identifying Biggest Impacts 7 8
Identifying Biggest Impacts Establishing Baselines, Guiding Development 9 10 Measuring Impacts Measuring Impacts Eco-Indicator PRé (Dutch) TRACI (Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and Other Environmental Impacts) US EPA EDIP (Environmental Design of Industrial Products) Danish EPA EIOLCA (Carnegie Mellon) IPCC Greenhouse Gas Emissions Ecological Rucksack 11 12
Measuring Impacts Measuring Impacts TRACI (Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and Other Environmental Impacts) measures: Resource depletion Ecosystem health Human health fossil fuels climate change carcinogens & human toxicity acid rain ecotoxicity water eutrophication ionizing radiation stratospheric ozone habitat destruction smog particulates Eco-Indicator 99 (by Pré) measures: Resource depletion Ecosystem quality Human health fossil fuels water eutrophication carcinogens minerals water acidification respiratory organics ecotoxicity respiratory inorganics land use (incl. bulk rsrc.) climate change stratospheric ozone ionizing radiation 13 14 Hair Dryer (Standard Model) LCA impacts by category Comparing Apples & Oranges 15 16
Comparing Apples & Oranges Doing LCA Eco-Indicator PRé (Dutch) TRACI (Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and Other Environmental Impacts) US EPA EDIP (Environmental Design of Industrial Products) Danish EPA EIOLCA (Carnegie Mellon) IPCC Greenhouse Gas Emissions Ecological Rucksack 17 18 Doing LCA Boundaries Determine system boundaries. Determine product life, functional unit Gather all product data Materials, masses Processes Transportation Energy use (estimate) End of life Compute and compare product impacts Interpret results 19 20
Product Life, Functional Unit Gather Product Data 21 22 Compute, Compare Impacts Manual Calculation 23 image courtesy IDSA.org 24
Manual Calculation Manual Calculation 25 26 Software Desktop: SimaPro - PRé ECO-it - PRé GaBi - PE International EIOLCA - Carnegie Mellon IDEMAT - Delft University LCAiT - Chalmers Industriteknik Umberto - IFU Hamburg ATHENA - Athena Institute BEES - First Environment LISA ECO-BAT Envest EQUER Web-based: Greenfly Sustainable Minds SolidWorks plugin: SustainabilityXpress 27 28
29 30 Interpret Results 31 32
Hair Dryer (Standard Model) LCA impacts by component 33 34 Hair Dryer (Standard Model) Product vs. packaging Sankey Diagram packaging is ~1% of current impact 35 36
Hair Dryer (Standard Model) LCA impacts by life-cycle stage heavy usage: 10min/day for 5yrs Hair Dryer (Standard Model) LCA impacts by life-cycle stage light usage: 2min/day for 5yrs 37 38 Hair Dryer (Standard Model) LCA impacts, recycling vs. landfill landfill scenario Hair Dryer (Standard Model) LCA impacts, recycling vs. landfill recycling scenario (motor and case) 39 40
Hair Dryer (35% Lighter) LCA impacts by component Hair Dryer (35% Lighter) LCA of Lighter compared to Standard Model Lighter Standard 41 42 Scenario Modeling 43 44
Straightener & Packaging (product pictured is NOT the product analyzed) Straightener & Packaging packaging is ~5% of production impact (less for recycled PVC) 45 46 Straightener Alternative packaging replace PVC with card-stock (eliminate 2/3 of the impact) or corrugated board (eliminate 40% of the impact). 47 48