Page 41 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

3 LCA History 23

Fig. 3.1 Development in number of published corporate responsibility reports mentioning LCA
(“Life cycle analysis” or “life cycle assessment”) per year from 2000 to 2015. Based on a search in
the PDF Search Tool of CorporateRegister (2016) carried out on April 25th, 2016

goods industry through the implementation of credible, transparent, and LCA-based
reporting systems in the value chains of consumer products, targeting both envi-
ronmental and social impacts. The activities of the sustainability consortium have
the potential to strengthen the applicationof LCA further in the main regions
supplying consumer products to the North American market, notably China and
Southeast Asia.

3.4 International Harmonisation and Standardisation

With the awakening interest in LCA in the late 1980s, it soon became clear that
there was a strong need for developing the methodology and harmonising the
evolving methods to ensure consistency between studies.

3.4.1 Scientific Collaboration and Consensus Building

The global Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry organised a
workshop on “A Technical Framework for Life Cycle Assessment” in 1990
(SETAC 1991). This first event was followed by a series of workshops targeting
central elements of the LCA methodology: in Leiden in the Netherlands (1991)
(SETAC 1992), Sandestin Florida (SETAC 1993a) and Wintergreen (1992)
(SETAC 1994) where central elements of LCA methodology were discussed with
the aim of developing a common framework and agree on principles and research
needs. The series culminated in a Code of Practice workshop held in Sesimbra,