Journal article
LC‐IMPACT: A regionalized life cycle damage assessment method
Norwegian University of Science and Technology1
Danish Technological Institute2
Paul Scherrer Institute3
PRé Sustainability B.V.4
Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences5
Polytechnique Montreal6
DG Joint Research Centre7
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich8
Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology9
Radboud University Nijmegen10
Department of Technology, Management and Economics, Technical University of Denmark11
Leiden University12
Sustainability, Department of Technology, Management and Economics, Technical University of Denmark13
Quantitative Sustainability Assessment, Sustainability, Society and Economics, Department of Technology, Management and Economics, Technical University of Denmark14
University of Michigan15
...and 5 moreLife cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is a lively field of research, and data and models are continuously improved in terms of impact pathways covered, reliability, and spatial detail. However, many of these advancements are scattered throughout the scientific literature, making it difficult for practitioners to apply the new models.
Here, we present the LC‐IMPACT method that provides characterization factors at the damage level for 11 impact categories related to three areas of protection (human health, ecosystem quality, natural resources). Human health damage is quantified as disability adjusted life years, damage to ecosystem quality as global species extinction equivalents (based on potentially disappeared fraction of species), and damage to mineral resources as kilogram of extra ore extracted.
Seven of the impact categories include spatial differentiation at various levels of spatial scale. The influence of value choices related to the time horizon and the level of scientific evidence of the impacts considered is quantified with four distinct sets of characterization factors. We demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method with an illustrative life cycle assessment example of different fuel options in Europe (petrol or biofuel).
Differences between generic and regionalized impacts vary up to two orders of magnitude for some of the selected impact categories, highlighting the importance of spatial detail in LCIA.
Language: | English |
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Year: | 2020 |
Pages: | 1201-1219 |
ISSN: | 15309290 and 10881980 |
Types: | Journal article |
DOI: | 10.1111/jiec.13018 |
ORCIDs: | Cosme, Nuno Miguel Dias , Dong, Yan , Fantke, Peter , Hauschild, Michael Zwicky , Laurent, Alexis , Owsianiak, Mikolaj , 0000-0002-2908-328X , 0000-0002-6602-7279 , 0000-0001-9763-2669 , 0000-0002-0724-5962 , 0000-0002-2475-0768 , 0000-0001-8606-917X and 0000-0002-2365-9436 |