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Paper or plastic? Local or imported food? Which isbetter for the environment? To answer these questions, one must takea holistic systems view using a quantitative approach known as life cycleassessment.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a fundamental method for assessing theenvironmental impacts of products and technologies from a "cradle to grave"systems perspective. It is an essential tool for anyone who performsenvironmental analyses or uses the results of such analyses for decisionmaking.
The course will provide an introduction to LCA methods and applications. Students taking this course will emerge with a solid understanding of whyan LCA systems perspective is important, basic skills for sound applicationof the LCA method and proper interpretation of its results, and an appreciationfor the strengths and limitations of LCA in practice. The coursewill cover the four major steps in LCA: (1) goal and scope definition;(2) life-cycle inventory compilation; (3) life-cycle impact assessment;and (4) interpretation and management. The course will include ahands-on modeling project, which the students will perform in parallelto the lectures to reinforce learning objectives and to gain experiencein LCA application.
Overview
Syllabus
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- The basics of energy and mass flows and exchanges with the environme
- Working with unit processes and unit process inventory data
- Study design: goal definition, system boundaries, and functional units
- Compiling the data: life-cycle inventory methods (process-based and input-output methods)
- Understanding impacts: life-cycle impact analysis for land, air, water, and health
- Building a simple LCA model using spreadsheet software
- Results interpretation and reporting
