LCA Links!

A launching event of the USEtox ^TM model will be held at the SETAC Europe conference on Tuesday, May 25th in Seville, Spain.

This model has been developed by a team of international scientists for assessment of human and ecotoxic impacts from chemicals in life cycle impact assessment and for ranking of chemicals according to their inherent hazard characteristics. At the launch, a representative from the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and a representative from the USEtox ^TM team will give a brief welcome and presentation of the USEtox ^TM model (15 min). The remaining time is allocated to informal talks with members of the USEtox ^TM Team and demonstration of the USEtox ^TM model, and for networking with LCA and chemical assessment colleagues. There will be posters and hand-out material about the model.

LCA-software companies that have integrated the USEtox ^TM characterization factors for human toxic and ecotoxic impacts into their software have been invited to demonstrate these facilities at the event.

If you wish to attend, please confirm your participation usetox@usetox.org

As many know, freshwater is an important natural resource.  Access to clean and affordable water is quickly becoming a global issue.  Internationally accepted management tools  are urgently needed to meet the needs of a variety stakeholders- national, regional and local governments; NGOs; and commercial entities alike.
As such, a working group has been launch by the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) with the objective to develop a standard (ISO 14046) on principles and guidelines for water footprinting of products, processes and organizations. This standard aims to be consistent and coherent with ISO14000 series, and with environmental metrics such as carbon footprint, LCA (ISO14040 and ISO 14044), GHG accounting (ISO 14064-1,-2,-3 and ISO 14067-1), and with environmental communication (ISO 14020, ISO 14067-2).
Sebastian Humbert, UC Berkeley, will be presenting at the upcoming SETAC Europe Conference outlining the ongoing process that started in 2009 and planned to last 3 years, aiming at creating such an ISO standard on water footprinting. The abstract of the presentation can be found HERE

From the Executive Summary “Despite overall decreases in incidence and mortality, cancer continues to shatter and steal the lives of Americans. Approximately 41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, and about 21 percent will die from cancer. The incidence of some cancers, including some most common among children, is increasing for unexplained reasons.” 

Public and governmental awareness of environmental influences on cancer risk and other health issues has increased substantially in recent years as scientific and health care communities, policymakers, and individuals strive to understand and ameliorate the causes and toll of human disease. A growing body of research documents myriad established and suspected environmental factors linked to genetic, immune, and endocrine dysfunction that can lead to cancer and other diseases. 

Between September 2008 and January 2009, the President’s Cancer Panel convened four meetings to assess the state of environmental cancer research, policy, and programs addressing known and potential effects of environmental exposures on cancer. The Panel received testimony from 45 invited experts from academia, government, industry, the environmental and cancer advocacy communities, and the public. 

The report summarizes the Panel’s findings and conclusions based on the testimony received and additional information gathering. The Panel’s recommendations delineate concrete actions that governments; industry; the research, health care, and advocacy communities; and individuals can take to reduce cancer risk related to environmental contaminants, excess radiation, and other harmful exposures. 

The report summarizes hazard sources from: 

• Industrial and manufacturing activities
• Agricultural practices
• Modern lifestyles
• Medical sources
• Military activities
• Natural resources.

Actions include: 

The “2-day technical seminar on toxicity aspects in LCA and specifically the USEtox model” given on April 8 and 9 at DTU, which was also broadcast live via web streaming, has been recorded and is now available via video streaming any time for you or your colleagues to follow. Just as if you were participating directly via web (except the possibility to pose questions) you can see the slides, the presenter, and the chat window. Both, the slides in pdf format and the complete streaming of both days are available here:

 http://www.3r.env.dtu.dk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38

 The next occasion to follow the USEtox course as given on the second day of these two days will be in connection with the SETAC Europe Annual Meeting on Sunday 23rd of May in Seville, Spain. The registration to this event is handled by SETAC directly (http://seville.setac.eu/short_courses/?contentid=203&pr_id=180 course no. 10).

Comments and further suggestions should be directed to Ralph Rosenbaum at DTU.  Contact information can be found HERE

APRIL 8-9, 2010

Impacts from chemicals that are applied or formed and emitted during the life cycle of a product or service still constitute a weak point in LCIA. Compared to other impacts covered in LCA, chemical impacts are associated with large uncertainties and omissions both in the inventory analysis and in the modelling of both indoor and outdoor emissions to impacts on human health and ecosystems.

The graduate school 3R (Residual Resources Research) at the Technical University of Denmark is organising a two-day seminar on toxicity aspects in LCA. The event will include a technical seminar on day 1, and a short course introducing the UNEP-SETAC toxicity model “USEtox” on day 2. The seminar will be given by experts in the field (see below in the programme) and is targeted to any stakeholder concerned with or interested in toxicity LCIA, ranging from Ph.D. students to LCA practitioners, decision-makers, method developers, and experts from related fields. 

Register by sending an email to: 3R@env.dtu.dk This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it.

If you want to register to the live streaming, you need to send an email, you will be provided with web address by return (Note that no registration will be accepted after April 7th, 2010).

Speakers include:

• Michael Hauschild, DTU
• Alexis Laurent, DTU
• Morten Birkved, DTU
• Ralph Rosenbaum, DTU
• Mark Huijbregts, Radboud University
• Stefanie Hellweg, ETH Zürich

It is abundantly clear for those of us that have been practicing life cycle assessment or promoting its use, that systems thinking approaches to product design has caught on and is here to stay.  But before we pop the champagne and rest on our respective laurels, there’s still a lot of work to be done to ensure the further proliferation of its appropriate use:

1> Despite the existence of life cycle standards on nomenclature and structure of life cycle inventories (ISO 14048), international consensus does not exist on the data model, or to a greater extent the taxonomy of LCA – what we call things and how they fit together.

2> Basis for allocation – economic vs. all the rest!  We need to decide when and where the proper allocation method should be applied for production systems that produce more than one product.  Avoiding allocation is an approach, but it doesn’t work in all cases.

3> Open loop recycling calculation methods – there are ways to figure this out that are much better than the 50/50 method!

4> Setting cut off criteria – when is enough data, enough data!  When your answer and its certainty doesn’t change with additional data.  Easy to say, difficult to do in practice.

5> When it comes to life cycle impact assessment, there are only two categories that have achieved international agreement – energy and climate change.  For the rest of the categories – you’re on your own.  The collection of LCIA methods have been adhoc at best.  There needs to be clear recommendations by LCA experts on the methods to use and where.

6> Demonstrated consensus based scientifically supported approaches to measure the impacts of products.  This is a natural fit and applied use for LCA.   We need to promote examples of when LCA based product assessments work.

Where do you think LCA needs to go?  What other areas should LCA methodological developers and practitioners work to achieve greater application of this methodology?

An Introduction:

Life Cycle Assessment is an objective process to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product, process, or activity by identifying energy and materials used and wastes released to the environment, and to evaluate and implement opportunities to affect environmental improvements. (SETAC, 1990)

The set of Environmental Life Cycle Assessment Links have been assembled in part as a contribution to further the science and implementation of LCA.  Select the area of interest on the selction bar to search your area of interest. This website is a co-product of my graduate research at Tufts University and came into existence during the discovery phase of my doctoral studies in 1994.  Now that I have completed my studies, I continue to update this portal to continue to promote the use of LCA.

My Contact information is:

Thomas Gloria, Ph.D.

t.gloria “at” life-cycle.org