Page 21 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Chapter 1
About This Book

Michael Z. Hauschild, Ralph K. Rosenbaum and Stig Irving Olsen

Abstract To reach the UN sustainable development goal, there is a need for
comprehensive and robust tools to help decision-making identify the solutions that
best support sustainable development. The decisions must have a system per-
spective, consider the life cycle, and all relevant impacts caused by the solution.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool that has these characteristics and the
ambition with this book is to offer a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to
the tool and its underlying methodological considerations and potential applica-
tions. The book consists of five parts. The first part introduces LCA. The second
part is a text book aiming at university students from undergraduate to PhD level,
and professionals from industry and within policy making. It follows ISO
14040/14044 structure, draws upon a variety of LCA methods published over the
years, especially the ILCD, and offers prescriptions and recommendations for all the
most important methodological choices that you meet when performing an LCA.
The third part introduces applications of LCA and life cycle thinking by policy- and
decision-makers in government and industry. The fourth part is a Cookbook
guiding you through the concrete actions to undertake when performing an LCA.
The fifth part contains some appendices. The book can be used as a text book, the
chapter can be read as stand alone, and you can use the Cookbook as a manual on
how to perform an LCA.

M.Z. Hauschild (&) S.I. Olsen
Division for Quantitative Sustainability Assessment, Department of Management
Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
e-mail: mzha@dtu.dk
R.K. Rosenbaum
IRSTEA, UMR ITAP, ELSA Research Group and ELSA-PACT—Industrial Chair for
Environmental and Social Sustainability Assessment, Montpellier, France
© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 3
M.Z. Hauschild et al. (eds.), Life Cycle Assessment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-56475-3_1