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4
Life Cycle Impact Assessment

It must be emphasized that these methods of analysis do not indicate that actual
impacts will be observed in the environment because of the life cycle of the product
or process under study, but only that there is a potential linkage between the
product or process life cycle and the impacts
Reinout Heijungs and Jeroen B. Guin´ee 1)

4.1
Basic Principle of Life Cycle Impact Assessment

The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is the second predominantly scientific
phase of life cycle assessment (LCA), together with the life cycle inventory (LCI)
analysis inserted between the two scientifically ‘softer’ components ‘Definition of
goal and scope’ before the LCI and ‘Interpretation’ after LCIA. 2)
ISO 14044 refers to two types of studies: LCA studies and LCI studies. Inventory
studies do not contain an impact assessment, they do however contain the phases
‘definition of goal and scope’ as well as ‘interpretation’. An inventory study is
therefore not to be confused with the LCA phase ‘life cycle inventory analysis’ (see
Chapter 3).
Why is an impact assessment necessary for a full LCA?

1. An LCA or ecobalance 3) requires considering and quantifying substantial
environmental aspects, which refers to inputs and outputs that can interact
with the environment, and the consequential potential environmental impacts,
related to an examined product system. The inventory supplies environmental
aspects of the defined product system as inputs and outputs per functional
unit (fU). In order to derive potential environmental impacts from these data

1) Heijungs and Guin´ ee (1993).
2) Kl¨ opffer (1994a,1997a,1998a).
3) The term ‘ecobalance’ was frequently used in the time of the ‘proto-LCAs’, it is still used in Japan
to name the yearly LCA conference and it is the English equivalent to the official German name
of LCA: ¨ Okobilanz; ISO 14040+44 (official German translation); Kl¨ opffer and Grahl (2009).

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): A Guide to Best Practice, First Edition.
Walter Kl¨ opffer and Birgit Grahl.
c 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. Published 2014 by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.