Review of criteria for evaluating LCA weighting methods

Johnsen, Fredrik Moltu; Løkke, Søren

doi:10.1007/s11367-012-0491-y

Cited by 35 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Who makes those value judgments, and whose value systems are considered during the decision process, is a matter of some debate (see, e.g., Endter‐Wada et al. ; Johnsen and Løkke ; Thabrew et al. ; Van den Bergh and Verbruggen ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The gap between data and decisions imposes substantial cognitive burden by asking decision makers to make complex judgments without guidance, frequently resulting in a de facto equal weighting scheme or other arbitrary decision that can overwhelm even high‐quality LCA (for discussion of weighting schemes, see, e.g., Finnveden et al. []; Johnsen and Løkke []; Pizzol et al. []; Weber and Borcherding []).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The need to enhance transparency about subjectivity and value choices and to better address decision maker needs is recognized in the literature (see, e.g., Ehrenfeld and Gertler ; Finnveden ; Goedkoop et al. ; Hofstetter ; Johnsen and Løkke ; Nash and Stoughton ; Plevin et al. ; Zhang et al ), as is the need to better engage the public and include social issues (see, e.g., Endter‐Wada et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Need for a Preference‐Based Multicriteria Prioritization Framework in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

Grubert

2017

J of Industrial Ecology

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Summary Life cycle thinking is a valuable tool for integrated assessment of the environmental, social, and economic outcomes of human activities. The combination of the three as life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) is a powerful decision support tool, but it also presents important design challenges. Among the most important challenges is how to include subjective information necessary for defining the major elements of a decision: prospects to decide among, uncertainty, risk attitudes, and preferences. Previous work on values in life cycle methods has addressed prospects, uncertainty, and risk attitudes. This article builds on that work by arguing that given LCSA's broad scope, explicit and standardized intercategory preferences are especially important for improving its value for decision makers. Practitioners should not be solely responsible for the value judgments necessary to integrate impact categories within and across environmental life cycle assessment (E‐LCA), social LCA (S‐LCA), and life cycle costing evaluations for LCSA. Neither should this task fall entirely to decision makers, particularly as life cycle–grounded decisions are highly sensitive to value frames. Individuals are unlikely to be able to meaningfully interpret, evaluate, and determine trade‐offs without support. This article thus proposes that LCSA leverage its multiple paradigms to rigorously generate explicit, empirically grounded intercategory preference archetypes for use in evaluating decision robustness, much as cultural theory‐based archetypes are currently used to test robustness to risk attitudes. Proof‐of‐concept data from the United States illustrate this approach, named WELFARES.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Need for a Preference‐Based Multicriteria Prioritization Framework in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

Grubert

2017

J of Industrial Ecology

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“…Weighting schemes that allow reducing information complexity have been explored and debated in the LCA literature since its inception. 35,36 Such schemes are undeniably useful in terms of providing decision makers with signals that are more easily interpretable. At the same time, if weighting schemes result in nontrivial information loss, then the metric loses utility.…”

Section: Environmental Science and Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Thinking, Measurement and Management for Food System Sustainability

Pelletier¹

2015

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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“…The usual procedure within policy is to express climate related impacts in monetary terms and apply these values in impact assessments and decision support tools, such as cost-benefit analyses (CBA) (OECD, 2014). Although less common, monetisation is also used for weighting different emissions and resource flows in life cycle assessment (LCA) for environmental management within different business sectors (Johnsen and Løkke, 2013;Pizzol et al, 2015). 1 Monetisation is sometimes used for weighting of different environmental impacts also in other environmental assessment tools, such as Environmental Impact Assessment, Life Cycle Costing and Strategic Environmental Assessment (Ahlroth et al, 2011) as well as in indicators of resource use and resource availability (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Choosing a monetary value of greenhouse gases in assessment tools: A comprehensive review

Isacs

Finnveden

Dahllöf

et al. 2016

Journal of Cleaner Production

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a b s t r a c tThere is a societal need for using monetary estimates of social impacts of CO 2 and other greenhouse gases in different assessment tools, such as cost-benefit analysis and life-cycle assessment. A number of estimates are available in the literature. Since these differ by several orders of magnitude, there is ambiguity and confusion about which to use. This review aims to give some guidance on this issue. The variation in carbon value estimates depends on several uncertain aspects e which will remain uncertain e including climate sensitivity, assumptions about future emissions, and decision makers' ethical standpoints. Hence, there is no single correct monetary value for CO 2 : it will depend on the ethical standpoint of the user. Due to this, estimates of social costs of CO 2 emissions cannot be used for calculating an optimal emission level, although they can inform such assessments. It is suggested that marginal abatement cost values are used for emissions capped by binding targets in short-term assessments, and that social cost of carbon values should be used for all other emissions. Benchmark principles for choosing a monetary carbon value are suggested along with associated estimates. Depending on the choices made with regard to ethical standpoints and assumptions about future emissions and climate sensitivity, estimates can be significantly higher than the ones typically used in assessment tools today. The estimates need continuous updating, and there is need for better understanding and communication around the limitations and uncertainties involved.

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Review of criteria for evaluating LCA weighting methods

Cited by 35 publications

References 9 publications

The Need for a Preference‐Based Multicriteria Prioritization Framework in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

The Need for a Preference‐Based Multicriteria Prioritization Framework in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

Life Cycle Thinking, Measurement and Management for Food System Sustainability

Choosing a monetary value of greenhouse gases in assessment tools: A comprehensive review

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