Initial thoughts on LCA
April 3, 2008 by NEIL MILLER | Filed under: Life-Cycle-Analysis (LCA) [1], [4]
Hello, my name is Neil Miller and I would like to contribute to this EM discussion topic and will be attending the Environmental Management Workshop. I am new to the subject of Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) but I really like the idea of “cradle-to-the-grave” and individuals/companies being responsible for evaluating, and hopefully minimizing, their environmental consequences.
Here is just a quick summary of the three LCA steps, defined by the EPA:
1. inventory analysis — identification and quantification of energy and resource use and environmental releases to air, water, and land
2. Impact analysis — technical qualitative and quantitative characterization and assessment of the consequences on the environment
3. Improvement analysis — evaluation and implementation of opportunities to reduce environmental burden
Also, here is a link for supplemental information on the relation of LCA to support an Industrial Ecologist (pg. 12-26), this could lead to some very good discussions in the future.
http://www.umich.edu/~nppcpub/resources/compendia/INDEpdfs/INDEintro.pdf