Page 60 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Chapter 5
LCA and Sustainability

Andreas Moltesen and Anders Bjørn

Abstract LCA is often presented as a sustainability assessment tool. This chapter
analyses the relationship between LCA and sustainability. This is done by first
outlining the history of the sustainability concept, which gained momentum with
the Brundtland Commission’s report ‘Our Common Future report’ in 1987, and
presenting the most common interpretations of the concept, which generally
comprise four dimensions: (1) measures of welfare, (2) inter-generational equity,
(3) intra-generational equity and (4) interspecies equity. The relevance of envi-
ronmental protection for dimensions 2 and 4 is then demonstrated, and the strategy
of LCA to achieving environmental protection, namely to guide the reduction of
environmental impacts per delivery of a function, is explained. The attempt to
broaden the scope of LCA, beyond environmental protection, by so-called life cycle
sustainability assessment (LCSA) is outlined. Finally, the limitations of LCA in
guiding a sustainable development are discussed.

Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter the reader should be able to:
• Explain the most common interpretations of the definition of sustainable
development from Our Common Future.
• Account for the relevance of environmental protection to sustainability.
• Describe the type of sustainability strategy that LCA may support and discuss its
limitations.

A. Moltesen (&) A. Bjørn
Division for Quantitative Sustainability Assessment, Department of Management
Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
e-mail: andreasmoltesen@gmail.com
A. Bjørn
CIRAIG, Polytechnique Montréal, 3333 Chemin Queen-Mary, Montreal, QC, Canada
© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 43
M.Z. Hauschild et al. (eds.), Life Cycle Assessment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-56475-3_5