LCA impact assessment: Case study using a consumer product

Life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) examines inventory data to identify possible environmental improvements and to assist making informed decisions. Two essentially different directions exist for this effort: (1) identify those activities and emissions having actual adverse environmental impacts (effects assessment) and (2) better understand resources used by a system, translate the releases and emissions of a system into a set of environmental indicators, and identify potential concerns as the result of those releases (resource utilization and emissions assessment). A limited case study has tested these two different LCA directions using a life-cycle inventory (LCI) on bathroom or toilet tissue. The case study shows that LCA cannot link releases to actual environmental impacts. Available environmental data, in fact, show no impacts from operations and sites identified in the original LCI. Therefore, LCA is not an effects assessment tool. Instead, LCA is more successful as a tool that takes a broad, system-wide approach at a strategic or macro level towards resource utilization and emissions issues. The case study shows that best description of LCIA is a resource and emissions assessment. The case study demonstrates several further learnings: 1. LCIA is best applied when integrated with complementary or supplementary tools and information to further evaluate and to better prioritize the study outcome before making decisions. In this scenario, LCA identifies issues from a system-wide or strategic approach and would be followed using specific tools to quantitatively evaluate the identified issues before drawing conclusions. 2. LCIA has little or no ability to assess complex biological issues like forestry resource use, habitat loss, and biodiversity. 3. LCIA cannot properly assess the ecotoxicity of complex effluents and wastes. 4. LCA data are static snapshots in time that do not capture dynamic trends in resource or emission reductions and may become outdated and obsolete.