Page 106 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

102 5. Development and applicability of life cycle impact assessment methodologies

At present, the research is combined with material flow analysis (MFA) and the LCA is
carried out internationally, which is one of the important directions in which to extend
the application range of LCA. For example, the environmental science research center
at Leiden University in the Netherlands calculated the exhaust potential value of ore re-
sources and built many metallic environmental impact characterization models. It offers
important reference standards and basic information for the evaluation of original
resources, energy consumption, and environmental impact of industrial production
(van Westenenk et al., 2019). Swedish scholars combined SFA with LCA, and recorded
the emission data of the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) material chain and all the others
related to PVC in Sweden. They have also turned the data into an environmental
subject score of LCA, which provides clear direction to the life cycle assessment of PVC
(Tukker et al., 1997).

5.2.3 Application situation

An LCA method can evaluate the environmental aspects in the decision-making process by
studying the whole life cycle of products, industry, and even the industrial chain. The eval-
uation could be strategic, or be a specific operation, which makes the industrial internal
behavior more in accord with the principle of sustainability.

5.2.3.1 Used in industry and enterprise sectors
The major applications of an LCA in industry and enterprise sectors consist of:
(1) the life cycle assessment of the production process and the integration production
progress; and
(2) the life cycle assessment combined with the industrial long-term planning and the
logistics analysis in strategy formulation.
The primary territories can be summed up as:
(1) the identification and diagnosis of the product system;
(2) the evaluation and comparison of the life cycle assessment of a product;
(3) the evaluation of the effect of product improvement;
(4) the ecological design of products and development of new products;
(5) the process design and the recycling management; and
(6) the audit of cleaner production (Houillon and Jolliet, 2005; Perugini et al., 2004; Yang et al.,
2004; Lopes et al., 2003; Xiang et al., 2003).

5.2.3.2 Used in government administration and international organizations
Life cycle assessment can solve the problems of the rational allocation of resources and
environment in all life cycle stages (production, use, recycle, and disposal), from the mi-
crocosmic aspect. The interaction and impacts among the socioeconomic system and the
natural ecological laws system provide the basis for government administration to de-
velop the environmental policy of region and industry macroscopically (Carlsson Reich,