Life Cycle Assessment goal and scope definition

ISO, F.nvironmental Management—Life Cycle Assessment—Goal and Scope Definition and Inventory Analysis (ISO 14041). 

ISO 14041 1998 (1998) Environmental Management - Life Cycle Assessment - Goal and Scope Definition and Life Cycle Inventory Analysis. European Commitee for Standardisation, Brussels, Belgium. 

ISO (1998) ISO 14041 Environmental management - Life cycle assessment - Goal and scope definition and inventory analysis. International Organisation for Standardisation, Geneva... 

ISO International Standard 14041, 1999E. Environmental management—life cycle assessment—goal and scope, definition and inventory analysis. International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Geneva. 

ISO. (1998). Environmental management—Life-cycle assessment— Goal and scope definition and inventory analysis (ISO 14041 1998). Intemational Standard Organization, October 1998, pp. 27. Brussels. 

Management - Life Cycle Assessment - Goal and scope definition and inventory analysis. 

Life cycle assessment is defined by ISO 14040 as compilation and evalu ation of inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle. The ISO standards regulate the procedural aspects of LCA. They do not, however, provide all the information required for carrying out an LCA study. The main phases of LCA are goal and scope definition, inventory, impact assessment, and interpretation. The various applications of LCA are not regulated by the standard (Fig. 15.1). 

Life Cycle Interpretation. The results obtained within the Life Cycle Inventory and/or the Life Cycle Impact Assessment are interpreted in the light of the Goal and Scope Definition (e.g., by means of sensitivity or uncertainty analyses) in order to draw conclusions and make recommendations. ... 

Rebitzer G, Ekvall T, Frischknecht R, Hunkeler D, Norris G, Rydberg T, Schmidt WP, Suh S, Weidema BP, Pennington DW. Life Cycle Assessment Part 1 Framework, Goal and Scope Definition, Inventory Analysis, and Applications. Environment International. 2004 30(5) 701-720. DOI 10.1016/j.envint.2003.11.005... 

ISO ISO/TR 14049 Environmental Management—Life Cycle Assessment—Examples of Application of ISO 14041 to Goal and Scope Definition and Inventory Analysis ISO/TR 14049 International Organization for Standardization Geneva, March 15, 2000, 2000. 

ISO/TR 14049 2012 Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Illustrative examples on how to apply ISO 14044 to goal and scope definition and inventory analysis... 

Rebitzer, G., Ekvall, T., Frischknecht, R., Hunkeler, D., Norris, G., Rydberg, T., Schmidt, W.-P., Sub, S., Weidema, B.P., Pennington, D.W., 2004. Life cycle assessment Part 1 framework, goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, and applications. Environment International 30, 701—720. 

The International Standard Organization (ISO 14040) [26] breaks the LCA framework into four main stages (1) Goal and scope definition of the study. This stage clarifies the purposes of carrying the study while the assumptions and system boundaries are described clearly. (2) Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) analysis. LCI involves data collection and calculation procedures to quantify relevant inputs and outputs of the entire system defined within the system boundaries. (3) Life cycle impact assessment involves qualifying the potential environmental impacts of the inventory analysis results. (4) The interpretation of the results from the previous phases of the study in relation to the objective of the study. This interpretation can be in form of conclusions and recommendations to decision-makers for process changes to deliver improvement in the environmentel performance. 

The two key elements of an LCA of the fuel cell system are the assessment of the entire life cycle of the fuel cell system and the assessment of a variety of environmental impacts because of it. The first step is the goal and scope definition, in which the system, the intended application, the data sources, and system boimdaries are described and the functional unit, that is, the reference of all related inputs and outputs, is defined. The criteria for selecting input and output flows or processes have to be specified, hi this step, the data quality requirements time-related and geographical coverage the consistency, representativity, and imcertainty of the data and the critical review procedure have to be described. 

Rebitzer G, Ekvall T, Frischknecht R, etal. (2004) Life cycle assessment - Part 1 Framework, goal scope definition, inventory analysis, and applications. Environment International 30 701-720. 

Life cycle assessment is a methodology to assess the environmental impacts of a product, process, or service. ISO 14040 and 14044 are international standards for developing LCA, which has four steps that include definition of goal or scope, inventory of relevant material and energy inputs and relevant environmental outputs, evaluation of environmental impacts per functional unit, and interpretation of results. 

Life cycle assessments (LCAs) consist of four independent elements (II) 1) definition of goal and scope 2) life cycle inventory analysis 3) life cycle impact assessment and 4) interpretation. 

When starting a Life Cycle Assessment the first task is the definition of goal and scope. As already mentioned the setting of system boundaries for products based on renewable resources is not straightforward. In order to exemplify die influence of the question what shall be included on the result of the assessment three different scenarios will be compared for the life cycle of biodiesel from tallow and used vegetable oil (see Figure 1). 

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