Life cycle assessment overall impact

To define the value of biodegradable polymers, the overall system costs and the environmental impact of individual products in their respective target applications have to be considered. To this end, comprehensive life-cycle assessments (EGAs) are an appropriate tool, especially when accompanied by costs evaluations that cover all phases from cradle to grave. 

Biotech may be gaining importance in the food and nutrition sector, but many nutritional ingredients are still produced by chemical synthesis or via extraction for example, carotenoids are currently most competitively produced by chemical means. For vitamin B2, however, the situation has changed completely in the last five years. The traditional eight-step chemical synthesis has been replaced by one fermentation process. This biotech process, which is also practiced by BASF on a large scale, reduces overall cost by up to 40 percent and the overall environmental impact by 40 percent, as has been shown by detailed life cycle assessments. Similar trends have been described for other bio-based processes, indicating that economic and environmental benefits go hand in hand in today s white biotech practice (EuropaBio and McKinsey Company, 2003, DSM position document, 2004). 

The quantitative assessment of environmental impacts can be made using life-cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, which accounts for both inputs and emissions. LCA can be used to identify the major environmental impact categories and the sources of those impacts within a chemical processing plant. LCA can also be used to identify the major contributions to environmental impact within a product s life cycle. Impact scores derived from LCA can be used along with economic assessment scores and social indicators to provide indicators of overall sustainability of processes and products. Economic assessments are often limited through failure to account for all internal costs and especially the external costs associated with waste. 

With the Life Cycle Assessment method developed from the late 1980s of the twentieth century, it has become possible to assess the overall envirOTunental impacts caused by products or product systems. With the help of LCA, parts, components, complete products as well as technologies and processes of any t)q)e, material, purpose and in any industry can be investigated and possibilities for an ecological optimization can be identified. 

In Muthu s recent book by Woodhead publications (Muthu, 2014), he comprehensively reviews the methods used to calculate environmental impact of textile and clothing supply chain, including product carbon footprints, ecological footprints, and life cycle assessment. The book presents information about the textile supply chain, its environmental impact, and an overview of the methods (greenhouse gas emissions, the water and energy footprints of the industry, and depletion of resources, as weU as the use of LCA) used to measure the overall environmental impact of the textile industry. 

Reuse becomes an interesting alternative for products where the stages before and after use have a dominating effect on the environment. The waste intensity per service for such a product is directly proportional to the number of cycles. On the other hand, in cases where the service phase is found to have the major impact according to a life cycle assessment, reuse will have little or no effect on the overall impact. 

There are three parts to the index - there s a brand module, a facilities module and a products module. Each of these modules effeets product sustainability. Overall we re hoping to get a snapshot of the entire life cycle of a product and its impact-it is not a life cycle assessment in itself, but it does try to touch on and measure and evaluate the potential impact of every stage of the life cycle. 

In conventional industrial systems, a product is manufactured and marketed after which the vendor forgets about it (unless some product defect, such as sticking accelerator pedals on an automobile, forces a recall). In a system of industrial ecology, however, the entire life cycle of the product is considered. An important aspect of such a consideration is life cycle assessment. The overall goal of a life cycle assessment is to determine, measure, and minimize environmental and resource impacts of products and services. 

The overall indicator results of an LCIA reflect cumulative contributions to different impact categories that are summed over time and space. Unlike some other assessment approaches, these indicator results usually do not reflect risks or impacts at any particular location or point in time. The consumption of resources and the generation of wastes, emissions, etc., often occur in a product s life cycle ... 

There are a number of ways to approach the assessment of the environmental risk that may be associated with a process. Whatever strategy might be chosen, however, some general risk areas should be part of the overall assessment. First, the inherent hazard, fate, and effects of the materials in the process need to be determined and assessed from an environmental perspective. Second, the potential for any process or unit operations releases need to be identified and evaluated. Third, environmental impacts from transportation, storage, and disposal options associated with the materials used in the process need to be identified and evaluated. Finally, the environmental life cycle impacts of producing those materials need to be collected and assessed. 

If the total energy and emissions of a battery during its entire lifetime production, use, maintenance and disposal are established, then divided by the total lifetime energy of the battery, the total emissions per kilowatt-hour of energy may be derived. These are separated into specific materials, usually elements, compounds or groups of compounds, for which specific environmental and/or human health impact assessment values are available. Utilizing these values, the overall relative life cycle environmental impact of a particular battery system may be established and compared to other battery systems. As previously discussed, these analyses involve many assumptions and... 

The diversity of environmentally related considerations raised in this chapter illustrates the complexity of evaluating the overall environmental impact of packaging alternatives. There is general consensus that when evaluating the environmental effects of a product or process, it is essential to consider the whole life cycle. Evaluations that are narrowly focused around a particular operation can lead to erroneous decisions if the impacts of the decision extend outside the boundary used, which is often the case. This is the motivation behind the developing technology of lifecycle assessment. 

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