The Role of SETAC in the Development of LCA

Abstract

-

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1065/lca2006.04.019

Background

Life cycle assessments have been performed using different methods before the name was coined since about 1970 in several countries of North America and Europe. It was the merit of SETAC to start a standardization process which culminated in the LCA-guidelines ('A code of practice') in 1993. It is the aim of this paper to trace back this and further LCA-related achievements by SETAC on the basis of documents and personal memories. It may be subjective in the selection and weighting of some events, but objectivity is strived for with regard to the whole and, in my view, singular development.

Results and Discussion

Starting 1990 with two workshops in Smuggler's Notch (Vermont) and Leuven (Belgium), SETAC and SETAC Europe organized several workshops during which important topics (framework, impact assessment, data quality, etc.) were treated and published in the form of reports which are still available. The main contribution by CML and its head, Helias Udo de Haes, was a practical method of impact assessment, transforming the formerly more technocratic LCA (energy, resources, waste) into an instrument of environmental assessment of product systems. In addition, important contributions to the allocation problem were made. Starting in 1993, ISO took over the leadership in standardization and SETAC started the famous working groups in North America and Europe, often dealing with the same topics in parallel. Due to the different cultures, the results were frequently complimentary rather than harmonic. The CML-method of LCIA, widely accepted in Europe, had to wait for about 10 years to be accepted at the other side of the Atlantic. It was helpful that SETAC – meanwhile a global organization – looked for a partner in order to implement LCA all over the world. This partner was found in the 'United Nations Environmental Programme' (UNEP) and the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative was officially launched by Klaus Töpfer in Prague in April 2002. SETAC also assumed an important role in communicating LCA via publications: workshop and conference reports, the 'code of practice', working group results and LCA News Letters. The annual meetings offered forums for LCA scientists, practitioners and users, well prepared by the LCA Steering Committee (SETAC Europe) and the LCA Advisory Group (SETAC North America).

Recommendation

. The main recommendation to SETAC is to adhere to LCA as the main environmental assessment tool for products and to expand it to a true sustainability assessment tool by adding Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and a still to be invented 'Social Life Cycle Assessment'. SETAC is to remain the scientific arm within the UNEP/SETAC LC Initiative, without loosing its identity. Working groups should be global rather than regional in the future, as suggested by the SETAC Europe LCA Steering Committee at the 2004 World Congress in Portland, Oregon.