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
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“This type of assessment may be used to quantify environmental emissions throughout the life cycle of various processes, which will be detailed in the following sections [141].”
From Anaerobic digestion of agricultural waste for biogas production and sustainable bioenergy recovery: a review (2024) · cites this paper as [141]
In the citing paper
“The selection of the functional unit is crucial, often quantified as the biogas yield per metric ton of agricultural waste or per unit of energy generated [141].”
From Anaerobic digestion of agricultural waste for biogas production and sustainable bioenergy recovery: a review (2024) · cites this paper as [141]
In the citing paper
“Life cycle assessment tool has a general framework, and the implementation of such studies includes several stages, i.e., (i) definition of the goal and scope of the study, (ii) defining the system boundaries, (ii) collection and adaptation of life cycle inventory, (iv) conducting the life cycle impact assessment, and (v) results interpretation [141].”
From Anaerobic digestion of agricultural waste for biogas production and sustainable bioenergy recovery: a review (2024) · cites this paper as [141]
In the citing paper
“Nevertheless, several databases have been constructed in recent decades to facilitate life cycle inventory and minimize the repetition of data collection [141].”
From Anaerobic digestion of agricultural waste for biogas production and sustainable bioenergy recovery: a review (2024) · cites this paper as [141]
In the citing paper
“The challenge here lies in hunting down usable data on every relevant material and production process from metal ore extraction through production, shipping, and eventual use and disposal of a product [336,674].”
From Tackling climate change with machine learning (2023) · cites this paper as [674]
Citations
Cites
Input-output analysis foundations and extensions
Miller, R. E., & Blair, P. D. (2009) · Cited by 5,098
Klüppel, H.-J. (2005) · The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment · doi:10.1065/lca2005.03.001 · Cited by 4,650
Quantitative Input and Output Relations in the Economic Systems of the United States
Leontief, W. W. (1936) · The Review of Economics and Statistics · doi:10.2307/1927837 · Cited by 2,789
Handbook on life cycle assessment operational guide to the ISO standards
Guinée, J. B. (2002) · The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment · doi:10.1007/bf02978897 · Cited by 2,779
System Boundary Selection in Life-Cycle Inventories Using Hybrid Approaches
Suh, S., Lenzen, M., Treloar, G. J., Hondo, H., Horvath, A., Huppes, G., Jolliet, O., Klann, U., Krewitt, W., Moriguchi, Y., et al. (2004) · Environmental Science & Technology · doi:10.1021/es0263745 · Cited by 1,025
Self-citationBare, J. (2002) · Journal of Industrial Ecology · doi:10.1162/108819802766269539 · Cited by 1,014
System boundaries and input data in consequential life cycle inventory analysis
Ekvall, T., & Weidema, B. P. (2004) · The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment · doi:10.1007/bf02994190 · Cited by 836
Self-citationLife cycle assessment Part 2: Current impact assessment practice
Pennington, D., Potting, J., Finnveden, G., Lindeijer, E., Jolliet, O., Rydberg, T., & Rebitzer, G. (2004) · Environment International · doi:10.1016/j.envint.2003.12.009 · Cited by 781
Self-citationMethods for Life Cycle Inventory of a product
Suh, S., & Huppes, G. (2004) · Journal of Cleaner Production · doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2003.04.001 · Cited by 761
Self-citationKlüppel, H.-J. (1998) · The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment · doi:10.1007/bf02979337 · Cited by 756
Research works printed but not linked: 15
- EUCAR, Automotive LCA guidelines—Phase 2, Total Life Cycle Conference and Exposition, Society of Automotive Engineers, Graz, Austria; December 1998.
- 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.
- 1998, vol. 2
- Huang, 1995, An executive survey of fortune 500 companies as to their current practices on life cycle concepts, Total Qual. Environ. Manage., 36
- International Federation of Institutes for Advanced Studies (IFIAS). Energy Analysis: Workshop on Methodology and Conventions. Report No. 6, Stockholm; 1974.
- 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.
- Moriguchi, 1993, Analyzing the life cycle impact of cars: the case of CO2, Ind. Environ., 16, 42
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Suh, 2001, Techniques in life cycle inventory of a product, J. Clean. Prod.
- 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.
- Todd JA, Streamlining. In: Curran (Ed.), 1996; 4.1–4.17.
- United Nations. Revised system of national accounts, Series F, no. 2, Rev. 4. United Nations Press, New York; 1993.
- Weidema BP, Market information in LCA. Environmental Report vol. 862. Copenhagen: Danish Environmental Protection Agency; 2003.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Recent developments in life cycle assessment
Finnveden, G., Hauschild, M. Z., Ekvall, T., Guinée, J., Heijungs, R., Hellweg, S., Koehler, A., Pennington, D., & Suh, S. (2009) · Journal of Environmental Management · doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2009.06.018 · Cited by 3,444
Self-citationRecycling of rare earths: a critical review
Binnemans, K., Jones, P. T., Blanpain, B., Gerven, T. V., Yang, Y., Walton, A., & Buchert, M. (2013) · Journal of Cleaner Production · doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.12.037 · Cited by 2,402
Sustainable supply chains: An introduction
Linton, J. D., Klassen, R. D., & Jayaraman, V. (2007) · Journal of Operations Management · doi:10.1016/j.jom.2007.01.012 · Cited by 1,759
Flax fibre and its composites – A review
Yan, L., Chouw, N., & Jayaraman, K. (2013) · Composites Part B Engineering · doi:10.1016/j.compositesb.2013.08.014 · Cited by 1,473
Svetlizky, D., Das, M., Zheng, B., Vyatskikh, A. L., Bose, S., Bandyopadhyay, A. K., Schoenung, J. M., Lavernia, E. J., & Eliaz, N. (2021) · Materials Today · doi:10.1016/j.mattod.2021.03.020 · Cited by 1,485
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
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
