Hauschild, Michael Zwicky

Owsianiak, Mikolaj

Ryberg, Morten

This study presents a first attempt at an operational LCIA-methodology basing the definition of the impact categories on the control variables as defined in the Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework. The PB-framework introduced a set of biophysical Earth system processes and defined quantitative PBs that have to be respected for Earth to remain in the Holocene state. The concept is attracting a strong interest from in dustry as companies seek to assess and communicate the environmental performance of their products relative to the PBs. The PB-framework has previously been attempted included in LCA as part of normalization and weighting. The limitations of both attempts are the lack of spatial differentiation for spatially differentiated PBs and the requirement for harmonizing the control variables with indicators already used in life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA). A way to overcome these limitations is to directly use the control variables in the PB-framework as impact categories in LCIA, which is also the objective of this study. This work defines a mathematical framework for a LCIA-methodology where Characterization Factors (CFs) are included for all Earth system processes in the PB-framework, for all substances contributing to effects on the Earth system processes and expressed in the units of the control variables. Except for novel entities and biosphere integrity which are currently excluded from the LCIA-methodology because the former is lacking a planetary boundary metric while a full understanding of the cause-effect chain is missing for the latter. The CFs were estimated by identifying the environmental models needed to model the control variables of the PB-framework and adapting these to fit the LCIA-framework. This work provides a full set of CFs for all the Earth system processes in the PB-framework. The new LCIA-methodology provide additional and complementary insights which cannot be achieved with raditional LCIA-methodologies. The results provide information on the environmental impacts of the assessed products and solves previous problems with approximative links between control variables in the PB-framework and current LCIA impact categories. The new insights can be used for communicating the product’s environmental performance and to support definitions of absolute reduction targets relative to the PBs

Online Research Database In Technology

The development of an operational LCIA-methodology with impact categories based on the control variables in the Planetary Boundaries framework

http://orbit.dtu.dk/ws/files/128128590/SETAC_Europe_26th_annual_meeting_Nantes_2016_abstracts.pdf

The development of an operational LCIA-methodology with impact categories based on the control variables in the Planetary Boundaries framework

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Online Research Database In Technology