Page 69 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

52 A. Moltesen and A. Bjørn
2. LCSA includes an economic dimension of sustainability. This is consistent with
the common “three pillar” interpretation of sustainability, but it can be ques-
tioned how relevant LCC is for sustainability assessments. This is because the
costsquantified by LCC are only relevant to sustainability if these costs apply to
the poor, which are of concern to the intra-generational equity dimension of
sustainability (Jørgensen et al. 2013). Yet, quantifying the monetary gains or
losses for the poor is already an aspect commonly included in S-LCA (see
Chap. 16).

5.6 Limitations to the Strategy for Achieving
Sustainability Through LCA

Even though LCA gives us the very valuable possibility of choosing the most
eco-efficient way of achieving a specific functionality or service, this approach has
some important limitations in regards to ensuring (environmental) sustainability.
Following the IPAT equation, and knowing the projections for the population
growth and the goals for the increase inaverage affluence, it has been estimated that
a factor 4, or higher, increase in the eco-efficiency of technologies or products is
needed just to ensure a status quo with regards to our impacts on the environment
(Reijnders 1998). But as shown in Fig. 5.1, status quo, with regards to some
environmental impacts, is not good enough if we are to guarantee a sustainable
development, because a number of planetary boundaries have already been
exceeded. For some technologies and products an increase in “T” closer to a factor
10 may therefore be required.
It is evident that a factor of 10 increase in the eco-efficiency of technologies or
products in many cases will be difficult to achieve. For example, even the most
eco-efficient cars are far from a factor 10 more efficient than the average car, both
regarding energy consumption during use and material consumption during pro-
duction (Girod et al. 2014). In other cases, however, a factor 10 increase in the
eco-efficiency of products has been achieved in isolated areas. Freon and other
ozone depleting gases used in for example refrigerators have more or less been
phased out as a result of the Montreal Protocol, leading to an eco-efficiency increase
on this isolated area, far better than a factor of 10 (WMO 2014).
However, one thing is to increase the eco-efficiency of the product, another is
how we administer the gains achieved through the increased efficiency. History has
demonstrated that the level of services that we want from products and technologies
is not static. As soon as new possibilities evolve we tend simply to expand our
wants and expectations (which might not be the same as needs, depending on the
interpretation of sustainability). Evidence suggests that increases in eco-efficiencies
in some cases due to changes in wants and expectations lead to so-called “rebound
effects”. An example of a rebound effect could be if an increase in eco-efficiencyof
the car engine leads the producer to increase the power of the motor, add extra