Cited by 2,753Environmental Impact and SustainabilityAgriculture Sustainability and Environmental ImpactChemistry and Chemical Engineering

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 83 of the 90 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Life cycle assessment

Abstract

Sustainable development requires methods and tools to measure and compare the environmental impacts of human activities for the provision of goods and services (both of which are summarized under the term "products"). Environmental impacts include those from emissions into the environment and through the consumption of resources, as well as other interventions (e.g., land use) associated with providing products that occur when extracting resources, producing materials, manufacturing the products, during consumption/use, and at the products' end-of-life (collection/sorting, reuse, recycling, waste disposal). These emissions and consumptions contribute to a wide range of impacts, such as climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, tropospheric ozone (smog) creation, eutrophication, acidification, toxicological stress on human health and ecosystems, the depletion of resources, water use, land use, and noise-among others. A clear need, therefore, exists to be proactive and to provide complimentary insights, apart from current regulatory practices, to help reduce such impacts. Practitioners and researchers from many domains come together in life cycle assessment (LCA) to calculate indicators of the aforementioned potential environmental impacts that are linked to products-supporting the identification of opportunities for pollution prevention and reductions in resource consumption while taking the entire product life cycle into consideration. This paper, part 1 in a series of two, introduces the LCA framework and procedure, outlines how to define and model a product's life cycle, and provides an overview of available methods and tools for tabulating and compiling associated emissions and resource consumption data in a life cycle inventory (LCI). It also discusses the application of LCA in industry and policy making. The second paper, by Pennington et al. (Environ. Int. 2003, in press), highlights the key features, summarises available approaches, and outlines the key challenges of assessing the aforementioned inventory data in terms of contributions to environmental impacts (life cycle impact assessment, LCIA).

Overview

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Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.envint.2003.11.005

Cites

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Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 15

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  2. Frischknecht et al., Ökoinventare von Energiesystemen: Grundlagen für den ökologischen Vergleich von Energiesystemen und den Einbezug von Energiesystemen in Ökobilanzen für die Schweiz. Gruppe Energie-Stoffe-Umwelt (ESU), Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich und Sektion Ganzheitliche Systemanalysen, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen. Bundesamt für Energie (ed.), Bern, Switzerland; 1996.
  3. 1998, vol. 2
  4. Huang, 1995, An executive survey of fortune 500 companies as to their current practices on life cycle concepts, Total Qual. Environ. Manage., 36
  5. International Federation of Institutes for Advanced Studies (IFIAS). Energy Analysis: Workshop on Methodology and Conventions. Report No. 6, Stockholm; 1974.
  6. Middleton J, McKean BA, Life cycle assessment of nickel products—the experience of the industry, Presentation at the UNEP/SETAC Workshop on 15–17.04.2002, Montreal, Canada; 2002.
  7. Moriguchi, 1993, Analyzing the life cycle impact of cars: the case of CO2, Ind. Environ., 16, 42
  8. OJ. European Parliament and Council Directive 94/62/EC of 20 December 1994 on packaging and packaging waste. Official Journal L 365, 31/12/1994 P. 0010-0023; 1994.
  9. Rebitzer G, Vereinfachung und Aussagesicherheit von Ökobilanzen. In: GDMB (ed.), Nutzen von Ökobilanzen. Heft 85 der Schriftenreihe des GDMB Gesellschaft für Bergbau, Metallurgie, Rohstoff-und Umwelttechnik, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany; 1999.
  10. Schmitz B, LCAs in EU infringements so far. Paper presented at “Use of life cycle assessment in policy-making in the context of Directive 94/62/EC, DG Environment/EUROPEN Workshop, 2002-06-20, Brussels, www.europen.be/issues/lca/LCA_workshop/Presentations/Schmitz,%20Bob.doc; 2003.
  11. Suh, 2001, Techniques in life cycle inventory of a product, J. Clean. Prod.
  12. Thorneloe SA, Weitz KA, Holistic approach to environmental management of municipal solid waste, Paper at Ninth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium, Sardinia, Italy, Oct. 6–10, 2003.
  13. Todd JA, Streamlining. In: Curran (Ed.), 1996; 4.1–4.17.
  14. United Nations. Revised system of national accounts, Series F, no. 2, Rev. 4. United Nations Press, New York; 1993.
  15. Weidema BP, Market information in LCA. Environmental Report vol. 862. Copenhagen: Danish Environmental Protection Agency; 2003.

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Metadata

Authors
Rebitzer, G., Ekvall, T., Frischknecht, R., Hunkeler, D., Norris, G., Rydberg, T., Schmidt, W.-P., Suh, S., Weidema, B. P., & Pennington, D. W.
Affiliations
  • École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH)
  • Chalmers University of Technology (SE)
  • ESU-Services (Switzerland) (CH)
  • Harvard University (US)
  • European Commission (BE)
  • Ford (Germany) (DE)
  • Leiden University (NL)
  • 2.-0 LCA Consultants (Denmark) (DK)
Corresponding author
Rebitzer, G.
Venue
Environment International
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2004-07
Volume
30
Issue
5
Pages
701-720
ISSN
0160-4120 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W1535028519
Cited by
2,753
References
90
Citations by year
2026: 106 · 2025: 135 · 2024: 131 · 2023: 123 · 2022: 122 · 2021: 162 · 2020: 157 · 2019: 159 · 2018: 133 · 2017: 123 · 2016: 137 · 2015: 193 · 2014: 201 · 2013: 190 · 2012: 141
FWCI
6.18
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Environment International (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • reroDoc Digital Library (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • VBN Forskningsportal (Aalborg Universitet) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Chemistry › Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
Keywords
life cycle assessment, life cycle inventory, environmental impact, product life cycle, emission data, resource consumption, pollution prevention, sustainable development, environmental impact assessment
MeSH terms
Conservation of Natural Resources, Environment, Environmental Pollution, Industry, Manufactured Materials, Models, Theoretical, Policy Making, Ecosystem

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