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Life cycle sustainability assessment in the energy sector 127

Table 5.2 Impact categories in three of the most widely adopted LCA impact
assessment methods, arranged according to their equivalence

ReCiPe ILCD CML
Global warming Climate change Global warming
Terrestrial acidification Acidification Acidification
Freshwater Eutrophication Eutrophication
eutrophication
Stratospheric ozone Ozone depletion Ozone layer depletion
depletion
Tropospheric ozone Photochemical ozone Photochemical oxidant
formation (humans) formation creation
Tropospheric ozone
formation (ecosystems)
Human toxicity (cancer) Human toxicity Human toxicity
Human toxicity
(noncancer)
Freshwater ecotoxicity Ecotoxicity Freshwater aquatic
ecotoxicity
Marine ecotoxicity Marine aquatic
ecotoxicity
Terrestrial ecotoxicity Terrestrial ecotoxicity
Mineral resources Resource depletion Depletion of abiotic
resources, elements
Fossil resources Depletion of abiotic
resources, fossil fuels
Particulate matter Respiratory inorganics/
particulate matter
Ionizing radiation Ionizing radiation
Land use/transformation Land use
Water use

account for the two particular problems of biogenic carbon and land use
change. These are outlined in the following box.

Biogenic carbon
Biogenic carbon refers to carbon that is sequestered from the atmosphere
during biomass growth and may be released back to the atmosphere later
due to combustion of the biomass or decomposition (e.g., of food
waste). Typically in LCA, and therefore LCSA, it is assumed that these
two flows from, and into, the atmosphere are equal and cancel each
other out. This is normally performed either by simply ignoring all
biogenic carbon flows or by accounting for the negative flow during