Abstract
In this chapter, a wide range of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods, new initiative for reducing emissions and improving resource efficiency, and Product Environmental Footprint are examined, in order to introduce the research tendency in this filed and clarify the differences among these Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods. The LCIA methods are broadly categorized as resource based and emission based. Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) database are also investigated, and the features of the generic LCI database are presented. The data formats of the ecoinvent database are deeply examined, with the aim of clarifying the attributes, types of each data components to help users to understand the role of inventory database in the practices.
Keywords
- Life cycle assessment
- Life cycle impact assessment method
- Environmental product declarations
- Product environmental footprint
- Life cycle inventory
- Life cycle inventory database
- EcoSpold
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support received from the CIRC4Life project (Grant agreement number: 776503) supported by the European Commission’s Circular Economy programme.
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Wu, Y., Su, D. (2020). Review of Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) Methods and Inventory Databases. In: Su, D. (eds) Sustainable Product Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39149-2_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39149-2_3
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