Page 96 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

78 LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT HANDBOOK

4.4 Historical Developments and Overview of LCIA
Methodologies

The first impact assessment methodologies for LC A, termed Life Cycle Impact
Assessment methodologies, can be traced back to before 1990 with the publica-
tion of the Critical Volumina approach (BUS 1984). Its basic principle relied on
the calculation of an equivalent volume of air, soil or water required to dilute
a pollutant emission in the respective environmental media up to a threshold
value, traditionally set in the regulation. Since then, significant advances have
been made on: (1) comprehensively describing and modeling cause-effect chain
relationships linking emissions and resources consumption to potential dam-
ages; (2) improving the relevance of modeled impact pathways, (3) improving
the scientific robustness of the characterization models and, (4) last but not
least increasing the coverage of characterized elementary flows.
For example, the first LCIA methods addressed only a few impact categories
characterizing up to few dozen elementary flows. Nowadays, recent method-
ologies, such as ReCiPe or IMPACT World+, are able to model up to 30 mid-
point impact categories and offer the opportunity to link them to three main
AoPs, providing overall thousands CFs. Figure 4.6 provides an overview of the
historical development of the most common LCIA methodologies.
ReCiPe (2009) was released as an update to Eco-indicator 99 and CML 2001.
Similarly, IMPACT 2002+, LUCAS and EDIP will no longer be updated as
the methodological developments will go toward IMPACT World+ (2012). It

1984 1997 2003 2007
Volumes critiques Ecofactors Impact 2002+ Ecoscarcity 2006
(Bus) (BUWAL) (EPFL) (ESU-Services, E2,
FOEN, & ÖBU)
1991 1995 2005 2010
Ecoscarcity Eco-indicator 95 Eco-indicator S LUCAS I LCD handbook
(BUWAL) (PRe) (PR«) (CIRAIG) (EC-JRC)

1992 2003 2012
(CML) EPS 2000 TRACI IMPACT world+
(CPM) (EPA) (CIRAIG, UM
DTU, Quantis)
1993 1997 2001 2004 2009
EPS EDIP 97 (CML) 2003 EDIP 2003 ReCiPe
(CPM) (IPU) JEPIX (DTU) (RIVM, CML,
(Japan) PRe, CE delft)
LIME
(METI)
BUS: Bundesamt für Umweltschutz FOEN: Swiss Federal Office for the Environment
BUWAL: Bundesamt für Umwelt, Wald und Landschaft IPU: Instituttet for Produktudvikling
CIRAIG: Interuniversity Research Center for Life Cycle JEPIX: Japan Environmental Policy Priorities Index
of Products, Processes and Services LIME: LCIA Method based on Endpoint Modeling
CML: Centruum voor Milieukunde Leiden METI: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
CPM: Centrum för Produktrelaterad Miljöanalys ÖBU: Schweizerische Vereiningung für ökologisch Bewusste Unternehmensführung
EDIP: Environment Design of Industrial Products ReCiPe: An acronym of "RIVM, Radboud University, CML, and PRe"
EPFL: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne RIVM: Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu
EPS: Environmental Priority Strategies TRACI: Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and other environmental Impacts
EC-JRC: European Commission-Joint Research Center UM: University of Michigan
Figure 4.6 Timeline of the introduction of the most common life cycle impact assessment
(LCIA) methodologies.