Accelerating life cycle assessment uptake: life cycle management and'quick'LCA tools

摘要: Although the traditional life cycle assessment (LCA) study provides detailed assessment of the system under study, typical limitations include long lead times in data collection and analysis. There is then the question of how to translate the outcomes from a technical LCA report into decisions and changes in business systems. Easier and quicker ways of doing such assessments and producing ‘decision-ready’LCA outputs may therefore accelerate LCA uptake under certain circumstances. In turn, these may provide a ‘way in’to enable life cycle thinking and LCA results to be embedded within commercial systems. Life cycle management (LCM) systems and ‘quick’LCA tools are examples of potential ‘acceleration’aids. Of course, the effectiveness of these tools will be determined by the accuracy needs and possibilities, and the particular decisions to be supported. They are likely to be designed for specific industry sectors to enable relevant support needs to be met. The ultimate usefulness of these tools will be determined by a set of requirements including accuracy, functionality, reliability, validity and useability (Verghese etal. 2009).In this chapter, LCM and ‘quick’LCA tools are examined as candidates for aiding the acceleration of LCA uptake, primarily in commercial settings. This examination includes a review of the needs and roles of key stakeholder groups in affecting LCA uptake, and from this, a set of design requirements for ‘quick’LCA tools. Two case studies of such tools are developed to illustrate both their form and the importance of context and stakeholders in tool development (see Sections 11.4. 1. and 11.4. 2).