Page 75 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

60 M.Z. Hauschild

to publication of state-of-the-art reports and codes of conduct for different parts of
the LCA methodology throughout the 1990s and feeding into the standardisation
process that went on in parallel. Although many methodological aspects are still
under discussion and development continues today, the fundamental structure has
been stable since the appearance of the first ISO 14040 standard in 1997, and it is
also applied in major LCA methodologies like the CML (Guinée 2002), EDIP97
(Wenzel et al. 1997), and by the ILCD guidelines from the EU Commission
(EC-JRC 2010).
The methodology chapters in Part II of this book give a detailed presentation of
the LCA methodology structured according to the ISO framework and referring to
the recommendations and requirements given by the ILCD guidelines. References
are not given consistently to these sources throughout the chapters but unless
otherwise mentioned, they are the basis of the presented methodology.
The European ILCD guidelines for LCA (EC-JRC 2010) are strongly founded in
the framework and methodological requirements of the ISO LCA standards (ISO
2006a, b) but they go further and offer methodological guidance at a much more
detailed level than the standards do. They are the outcome of a comprehensive
consultation process involving hearings of experts and stakeholders, and on this
basis, we have chosen them as a useful reference for discussing LCA methodology
and specifying methodological choices. In Chap. 37 the most important method-
ological actions and requirements of the ILCD guideline are presented in the form
of a cookbook or checklist that you can refer to as a reference methodology to
follow, or to deviate from at specific and transparently documented points of the
methodology.

6.2 The Phases of LCA

We begin in this introductory chapter with a brief description of the main
methodological phases and the way in which their results are assessed and refined in
a focused iterative process. This will give you an overview of the methodology
before you dig into the details and peculiarities of its different phases and elements,
and it will introduce you to the iterative approach, which is fundamental for per-
forming a successful LCA.
As illustrated in Fig. 6.1, the ISO standard distinguishes the methodological
framework of LCA from its different applications, which are multiple such as
product development, Ecolabelling, carbon footprint and other footprints (see
Part III of the textbook for examples). Applications of LCA are treated in separate
publications from the standard organisation. The LCA framework operates with
four separate phases, Goal and scope definition, Inventory analysis, Impact
assessment and Interpretation.