Page 377 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

6.3 State of the Art of Methods 361

6.3
State of the Art of Methods
6.3.1
Life Cycle Assessment – LCA
Current practices in ecological risk assessment generally do a poor job of considering
biological and physical factors as most focus entirely or nearly so on chemical
effects. 21)

LCA, as described in the first five chapters of this book, is the sole (‘one and
only’) internationally standardised method of environmental-oriented analysis of
product systems. The now relevant international standards ISO 14040:2006 and
14044:2006 have been called The constitution of LCA by Finkbeiner. Two key issues
22)
determine LCA: the analytic view on the entire life cycle ‘from cradle to grave’
and the functional unit, which allows the quantification of the benefit of goods or
services (‘reference flow’). The original series of international standards ISO 14040
to 14043:1997–2000 was replaced by the slightly modified standards ISO 14040 and
14044:2006. 23) The well-known structure – definition of goal and scope, inventory
analysis, impact assessment and interpretation (see Chapter 1) – was developed
by SETAC (1990–1993) and by ISO (1993–2000) in the course of harmonisation
and standardisations. The standards provide strict requirements particularly for
comparative assertions (see Chapter 5), which are to be publicly made available to
prevent the abuse of LCA results. Thus LCA has reached a high level, and further
progress will be adjusted more slowly. On the other hand, there are numerous
24)
weak points and corresponding improvement opportunities, many of which have
been discussed in the preceding chapters.
Some of the weaknesses attributed to LCA can, however, only be removed with
a loss of simplicity and robustness of the method. These are mainly related to the
restricted resolution of location and time in life cycle inventory (LCI) and life cycle
impact assessment (LCIA) (see Chapters 3 and 4). The way out of the world of
potential impacts of classical LCA into a world of life-cycle based quantitative risk
assessment is costly and implies new uncertainties. Other problem fields like, for
example, the choice of allocation rules and system expansions could in principle be
solved by conventions. 25) Even the seemingly strict scientific metre convention and
its modern successor ‘Syst` eme International des Mesures et Quantit´ es’ (Syst` eme
International d’unit´ es, SI) 26) is by no means scientifically superior to the obsolete
US unit-system but ‘only’ more consistent and practicable. As there is still no
international LCA society, 27) SETAC would be the best suited forum to provide
these conventions or at least activities for their preparation.

21) Anonymous in : SETAC Globe vol. 3(4) p. 59 (Ecological Risk Assessment section).
22) Finkbeiner (2013).
23) Finkbeiner et al. (2006).
24) Reap et al. (2008a,2008b) and Guin´ ee et al. (2011).
25) Kl¨ opffer (1998).
26) ISO (1981).
27) Kl¨ opffer (1997).