Page 45 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

3 LCA History 27

Fig. 3.3 Geographical distribution of articles published from 1998 to 2013 considering primary
authors only (Hou et al. 2015). Reprinted with permission of Springer

Figure 3.3 shows that many of the English language LCA-related academic
papers originate in the US and Europe, but that countries like Japan, China and
South Korea have also had a noticeable publication activity. The limited activity on
LCA in most emerging economies is clearly visible. Reasons for this are discussed
in Chap. 19 on Globalisation and mainstreaming of LCA. Note, however, that LCA
studies published in other languages than English are not included in Fig. 3.3,
which therefore may lead to an underestimation of academic publications from
emerging economies.

3.6 Concluding Remarks

LCA is a young discipline with 50 years of history and less than 30 years of intense
development and application. Over the years, the methodology and applications
have matured in the sense that scientific consensus and standards have emerged on
how to perform LCA. The field has expanded in other ways when considering the
number of publications, application domains and the geographical distribution of
LCA competences. Table 3.1 summarises some of the important events in the
history of LCA.