SETAC-Europe LCA working group ‘data availability and data quality’

doi:10.1007/bf02978727

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…LCA methods have become significantly more robust since their inception, with larger numbers of datasets becoming available from which to draw inventory data and increasing levels of sophistication and complexity. Nevertheless, some of the harshest critics of LCA methods are LCA practitioners themselves, with multiple formal and informal working groups seeking to improve challenges that persist in LCA's implementation (SETAC, 2001;Rosenbaum et al, 2008;Sonnemann and Valdivia, 2017;Bergerson et al, 2020). While the LCA method has specific requirements that are dictated by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) (2006), much of the guidance within ISO allows a degree of flexibility to allow practitioners to make methodological choices that align with the goals of a particular study.…”

Section: What Is Lca and How Is It Used?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This flexibility allows an LCA to be suited to a given purpose but can have a confounding effect where different LCAs of the same product produce seemingly different results. Much of the criticism levied at LCA tends to focus on one of three major issues: the boundaries of the analysis (Matthews and Small, 2000;Frijia et al, 2012;Choudhary et al, 2014;Kakadellis and Harris, 2020), data uncertainty and data quality (Huijbregts et al, 2001;SETAC, 2001;von Bahr and Steen, 2003;Lo et al, 2005;Tan et al, 2007;Hung., 2009;Mullins et al, 2011;de Kleine et al, 2014;Pernollet et al, 2017;Xue et al, 2017), and appropriately capturing the environmental impacts (Knoepfel, 1996;Notarnicola et al, 1998;Goedkoop and Spriensma, 2001;Bare et al, 2003;Rosenbaum et al, 2008;Hauschild et al, 2013;Ernstoff et al, 2019;Saling et al, 2020).…”

Section: What Is Lca and How Is It Used?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The capabilities and deficiencies of life cycle assessment to address the plastic problem

Miller

2022

Front. Sustain.

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Plastic is a ubiquitous material that has caused major environmental impacts. Ecosystem damage from improperly disposed plastic waste is the most visible of these impacts; however, plastic also has less visible environmental impacts throughout its supply chain. At the same time, plastic is not unique in possessing severe, often invisible, environmental impacts that occur throughout its life cycle. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a helpful tool can be used to contextualize the environmental impacts of plastic compared with alternative solutions or material substitutes. LCA can broaden our understanding of the environmental impacts of a product beyond what is the most obvious and visible, taking a comprehensive view that encompasses raw material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, use, and end-of-life. LCA can be used to target specific areas for improvement, understand and evaluate tradeoffs among different materials, and can be helpful to avoid environmental problem-shifting. This review provides an overview of the LCA process and describes the benefits and limitations of LCA methods as they pertain to plastic and plastic waste. This paper summarizes major trends that are observed in prior LCA studies, along with a discussion of how LCA can best be used to help resolve the plastics problem without causing other unintended issues. The life cycle perspective analyzes the environmental impact associated with a specific product, often comparing the environmental impacts of one alternative to another. An alternative perspective analyzes the aggregated environmental impacts of the entire plastic sector, analyzing the full scope and scale of plastics in the environment. Both perspectives provide meaningful data and insights, yet each provides an incomplete understanding of the plastics problem. The comparative LCA perspective and the aggregated environmental impact perspective can complement one another and lead to overall improved environmental outcomes when used in tandem. The discussion highlights that reduced consumption of the underlying need for plastic is the only way to ensure reduced environmental impacts, whereas interventions that promote material substitution and or incentivize shifts toward other kinds of consumption may result in unintended environmental consequences.

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Section: What Is Lca and How Is It Used?mentioning

confidence: 99%