Page 19 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Life Cycle Assessment: Principles, Practice and Prospects
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initiatives discussed include eco-design, cleaner production, waste management, biofuels, vol-
untary covenants and built environment regulations. Chapter 3 provides a detailed commentary
of LCA in practice, including the different approaches and examples of how different stakehold-
ers apply it. Chapter 4 provides a systemic critique of LCA and scrutinises its claim as an analyti-
cal approach to assessing sustainability. This chapter examines the process of problem-definition
and focus on functionality and reveals LCA’s limitations in dealing with wider social and con-
sumption issues. Chapter 5 presents an empirical, practice-based perspective on how LCA varies
across different geographic and environmental settings, using the example of Australia to reveal
the limits of applying ‘generic’ data to assessing changes in ‘unique’ environments.
The central section of the book is dedicated to the practice of LCA, and is arranged around
five principal topics: waste management, the built environment, water management, agricul-
tural systems, and carbon and other greenhouse gas assessment. Shelter, water and food sit
high on Maslow’s hierarchy of essential human needs; hence the focus of three of these chapters.
Waste and fossil carbon are current threats to the provision of such basic needs and raise deep
questions about the efficiency and appropriateness of social and technical systems.
Chapter 6 explores waste ‘management’ and the role of LCA through case studies that
examine the relative environmental benefits and costs of recycling paper and packaging waste,
plastics and other waste fractions.
Chapter 7 commences with the policy context for ‘sustainable’ built environments. A series
of case studies then explores the relevant applications of LCA, leading to a consideration of
future directions for LCA in the built environment.
Chapter 8 focuses on water systems, including the water-related environmental impacts of
technologies and product systems, and life cycle environmental impacts of water supply and
servicing systems. The complex challenges of ‘water in systems’ and ‘water service synthetic
systems’ leads to a wider discussion of water, design and social context.
Chapter 9 examines the LCA of agricultural systems, revealing problems with its applica-
tion due essentially to the heterogeneity of such systems. Nevertheless, LCA has been success-
fully applied, and case studies reported here reveal results that may be regarded as controversial,
counter-intuitive and/or simply surprising. Related debates and concepts, such as ‘food miles’,
are also considered, as is the future of farming in an environmentally constrained world.
Chapter 10 examines the relationship between carbon assessment standards and LCA
standards, and provides a critique of carbon offsetting from a life cycle perspective. Current
and future issues for carbon management are also discussed, along with scrutiny of LCA and
biomass technologies with particular reference to potential greenhouse gas savings through
the substitution of fossil energy technologies.
Chapter 11 describes the rise of so-called ‘quick LCA’ and Life Cycle Management (LCM)
tools, using contemporary examples. Discussion focuses on the need for decision support tools
which provide readily available LCA information, and extends to ways in which ‘decision-
support’ can be provided more readily to organisations. An overview of LCM leads to a stake-
holder assessment of the needs of ‘quick’ LCA tools, which are then assembled into a series of
design requirements. The development and application of two such ‘quick LCA’ tools are then
explored through case studies.
Finally, Chapter 12 reflects critically on current LCA theory and practice and develops a
prospective discussion of likely future trends in LCA to 2020. Drawing together the threads
from LCA development to application and integration into current business practices, the role
of LCA in influencing policy and governance in the transition towards sustainability is
assessed. We also consider the factors affecting the role of LCA in assisting this transition,
together with a range of other ‘ingredients’ that shape the prospects and uptake of LCA between
now and 2020.

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