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Strengths and Limitations of Life Cycle Assessment

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Background and Future Prospects in Life Cycle Assessment

Abstract

This chapter discusses strengths and limitations of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) not by linear analysis but by elucidating limitations embedded in strengths. It elaborates perceived and real limitations in LCA methodology grouped by research need, inherent characteristic or modeling choice. So, LCA practice continues to suffer from variations in practice that can result in different LCA results. Some limitations, such as modeling missing impact indicators and making life cycle inventory more readily-available, will be addressed through continued research and development of the tool. Other modeling choice-related limitations, such as matching goal to approach setting a proper functional unit or appropriately scoping the assessment, need to be addressed through continued education and training to assist users in the proper application of the tool. Still other limitations in LCA practice would benefit by the development of harmonized guidance and global agreement by LCA practitioners and modelers.

However, despite these variations, LCA offers a strong environmental tool in the way toward sustainability.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Life cycle thinking is a fundamental prerequisite towards understanding impact mechanisms along value chains in complex product or production systems. It is the indispensable approach to support sustainable development (De Schrynmakers 2009).

  2. 2.

    ISO 14040 did not intend from the beginning to standardize LCA methods: “there is no single method for conducting LCA” (Heijungs and Guinée 2012).

  3. 3.

    Efforts to develop a Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment approach rose from the perceived need to broaden the scope of LCA from mainly environmental impacts to covering all three dimensions of sustainability (people, planet and prosperity) (CALCAS 2009). However, this broadening is at variance with ISO’s explicit restriction to environmental issues (Heijungs and Guinée 2012).

  4. 4.

    A Technical Framework for Life-Cycle Assessment. August 18–23, 1990, Smugglers Notch, Vermont.

  5. 5.

    The role of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in life cycle assessment development and application by James Fava et al.

  6. 6.

    See the ‘US LCI Database Project—Review Panel Report on the Development Guidelines’ from January 2004 (www.nrel.gov/lci/pdfs/34275.pdf). NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

  7. 7.

    While midpoint modeling is most common in LCA practice, some methods model past the midpoint to the endpoint level (e.g., from an ozone depletion indicator to increased incidents of skin cancer). These damage models can be reported in units of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), an aggregation of environmental impacts, monetary value, or other aggregated damage units.

  8. 8.

    Value judgments include the application of weighting (assignment and calculation of different impact categories and resources reflecting their relative importance) and normalisation (calculation of the magnitude of the category indicator results). In the ISO standard, normalisation is allowed for comparative assertions intended to be made available to the public, but not weighting due to its inherently subjective nature (ISO 14040+44).

  9. 9.

    The international standards as the constitution of life cycle assessment: the ISO 14040 series and its offspring by Matthias Finkbeiner.

  10. 10.

    A decision is considered small or marginal when it does not affect the determining parameters of the overall market situation, that is, the direction of the trend in market volume and the constraints on and production costs of the involved products and technologies (CALCAS 2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. BAMAC Ltd., 5137 Oak Brook Drive, 45244, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    Mary Ann Curran

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  1. Mary Ann Curran
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Correspondence to Mary Ann Curran .

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  1. LCA Consult & Review, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Walter Klöpffer

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Curran, M. (2014). Strengths and Limitations of Life Cycle Assessment. In: Klöpffer, W. (eds) Background and Future Prospects in Life Cycle Assessment. LCA Compendium – The Complete World of Life Cycle Assessment. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8697-3_6

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