Week 12 - Materials

LCA evaluates the full environmental burden of a material, building assembly, system or service over its full lfecycle.

For example, if we were considering a LCA of a solar panel for a residential property we would need to consider the following issues:

• The raw materials that its made from.  Where and how was the solar panel produced ?
• Packaging and transportation to its destination
• Installation requirements and any wastes produced.
• Operational and maintenance costs
• Disposal or recycling
• Disassembly and reuse

Image courtesy of www.thegreenestdollar.com

Impacts may be difficult to analyse and quantify but still the LCA can be useful for comparing the environmental impacts of different products.

According to ISO standardisation guidelines ISO, 1997a, ISO, 1997b, ISO, 1998a and ISO, 1998b, an LCA study can be divided into four steps:

• Goal and scope definition,
• Inventory analysis,
• Impact assessment, and
• Interpretation

(Hujibregts et al. 2000).