Page 88 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

7 Goal Definition 73

7.7 Commissioner of the Study
and Other Influential Actors

The goal definition should also explicitly state who commissioned the study, who
financed it (usually the commissioning organisation) and other organisations that
have influence on the study, including those of the LCA experts conducting the
study. This step of the goal definition is meant to highlight potential conflicts of
interest to readers of the study. Such conflict of interest may occur if a key provider
of data has an economic interest in particular LCA results and interpretations. In
comparative studies, it may also lead to an unintentional bias of the data collection.
The commissioner of the study will normally provide data that is up to date and
reflects the current performance of the technology for the commissioner’s own
product. In contrast, the data collection for the other product(s) in the comparison
will typically have to be based on literature and databases and hence, due to the
delay involved in publishing the data, represent the state of the art several years ago.

References

This chapter is to a large extent based on the ILCD handbook and the ISO standards 14040 and
14044. Due to the scope of this chapter, some details have been omitted, and some procedures
have been rephrased to make the text more relevant to students. For more details, the reader
may refer to these texts:
EC-JRC.: European Commission—Joint Research Centre—Institute for Environment and
Sustainability: International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook—General
Guide for Life Cycle Assessment—Detailed Guidance. First edition March 2010. EUR 24708
EN. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg (2010)
ISO.: Environmental Management—Life Cycle Assessment—Principles and Framework (ISO
14040). ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, Geneva (2006a)
ISO.: Environmental Management—Life Cycle Assessment—Requirements and Guidelines (ISO
14044). ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, Geneva (2006b)

Author Biographies

Anders Bjørn part of the LCA community since the early 2010s. Main focus is interpretations of
sustainability and integration of sustainability targets in LCA to enable absolute sustainability
assessments.

Alexis Laurent working with LCA since 2010 with a strong LCIA focus, particularly on
normalisation aspects. Main LCA interests include development of LCIA methods, LCA
applications and footprinting of large-scale systems for policy-making (e.g. nations, sectors), and
LCA applied to various technology domains, including energy systems.