Life‐Cycle Assessment in Relation to Risk Assessment: An Evolving Perspective

Risk Analysis - Tập 17 Số 3 - Trang 359-365 - 1997
James Owens1
1Corporate Professional & Regulatory Services, Environmental Science Department, The Procter & Gamble Company, 5299 Spring Grove Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217.

Tóm tắt

A life‐cycle approach takes a cradle‐to‐grave perspective of a product's numerous activities from the raw material extraction to final disposal. There have been recent efforts to develop life‐cycle assessment (LCA) to assess both environmental and human health issues. The question then arises: what are the capabilities of LCA, especially in relation to risk assessment? To address this question, this paper first describes the LCA mass‐based accounting system and then analyzes the use of this approach for environmental and human health assessment. The key LCA limitations in this respect are loss of spatial, temporal, dose‐response, and threshold information. These limitations affect LCA's capability to assess several environmental issues, and human health in particular. This leads to the conclusion that LCA impact assessment does not predict or measure actual effects, quantitate risks, or address safety. Instead, LCA uses mass loadings with simplifying assumptions and subjective judgments to add independent effects and exposures into an overall score. As a result, LCA identifies possible human health issues on a systemwide basis from a worst case, hypothetical hazard perspective. Ideally, the identified issues would then be addressed by more detailed assessment methods, such as risk assessment.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

10.1007/BF02978624

L.‐G.Lindfors K.Christiansen L.Hoffman Y.Virtanen V.Juntilla O.‐J.Hanssen A.Rønning T.Ekvall andG.Finnveden Nordic Guidelines on Life‐Cycle Assessment. Nordic Council of Ministers Nord Copenhagen (1995) p.20.

SETAC, 1823, A Technical Framework for Life‐Cycle Assessment

US EPA, 1993, Prepared by Battelle and Franklin Associates, Inc. for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

10.1016/0195-9255(92)90020-X

SETAC, 1993, Proceedings of a workshop in Sesimbra, Portugal

US EPA, 1995, Prepared by Research Triangle Institute for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

SETAC, 1992, Proceedings of a workship in Sandestin, FL

White P., 1995, LCA Back on Track—But Is It One Track or Two, SETAC-Europe LCA-News, 5, 4

10.1007/BF02978944

SETAC, 1997, Life Cycle Impact Assessment: The State‐of‐the Art, Report of the SETAC LCA Impact Assessment Work Group, Final Report

HESI, 1996, Human Health Assessment in Life‐cycle Assessment: Analysis by an Expert Panel

ISO Environmental management—Life Cycle Assessment—Impact Assessment International Standards Organization Committee Draft for ISO 14042 TC 207 Environmental Management SC 5 Life Cycle Assessment Document N 97 Paris(1997).

Smet B., 1996, Environmental Life‐Cycle Assessment, 16

SPOLD, 1995, Society for the Promotion of Life Cycle Development

10.1007/BF02978945

10.1007/BF02978697

Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Risk Analysis

Tập 17 Số 3

359-365

Thông tin tác giả