Addressing temporal considerations in life cycle assessment

摘要: Abstract In life cycle assessment (LCA), temporal considerations are usually lost during the inventory calculation, resulting in an aggregated “snapshot” of potential impacts. Disregarding such has previously been underlined as important source uncertainty, but a growing number approaches have developed to tackle this issue. Nevertheless, their adoption by LCA practitioners is still uncommon, which raises concerns about representativeness current results. Furthermore, lack consistency can be observed used terms for discussions on considerations. The purpose review thus search common ground and identify implementation challenges while also proposing development pathways. This paper introduces glossary most frequently related build understanding key concepts facilitate discussions. A performed solutions different phases (goal scope definition, analysis impact assessment), analysing each consideration its relevant conceptual developments level operationalisation. We then present stepwise approach pathways address dynamic (DLCA). Three focal areas integrating within framework discussed: i) define over distributions emissions occurring, ii) use calendar-specific information model systems associated impacts, iii) select appropriate resolution describe variations flows characterisation factors. Addressing more DLCA expected reduce uncertainties increase results, possible trade-offs between additional data collection efforts increased value results from DLCAs should kept mind.