Sustainable development by design for environment (DFE) analysis tools : the EEA-LCA combining
Abstract
Sustainable development requires D f E (Design for Environment) methods and tools to measure and compare the environmental impacts of human activities for the products. Environmental impacts include those from emissions into the environment and those due to the consumption of resources, as well as other interventions associated with the product's end-of-life. These emissions and consumptions contribute to a wide range of impacts, such as climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and tropospheric ozone (smog) creation among others. A clear need, therefore, exists to be proactive and to provide complementary insights, apart from current regulatory practices, to help reducing such impacts. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a systematic approach that enables implementation of cleaner and greener product and process concepts in industry. It is described as a method to estimate environmental impacts associated with products, processes and services. LCA approach involves quantitative analysis structured in four stages: goal definition, inventory analysis, impact analysis and improvement analysis. Common criticisms of this approach include high completion costs, labour intensive data collection, unavailability of some information for the required assessment and the failure of LCA to address other design issues such as functionality, reliability and safety requirements. Taking these factors into consideration, a number of alternative or streamlining approaches have been suggested including a qualitative approach named as “EEA” (Environmental Effects Analysis). EEA is used in the early stages of product life cycle for the purpose of identifying and evaluating potential environmental impacts in all life cycle phases of a product. The objective of the tool is to take corrective and preventive actions to minimize the environmental burden from products during their life cycle. The EEA is a useful method in the early phases of all kinds of product development processes. LCA can also be used in the early phases of product/process elaboration, if data is available for the product being developed. By using the EEA method in the first steps of product development process, it is possible to find out where, in the product's life cycle, the hotspots occur that cause the major environmental impact. At that stage it is still easy to make efficient environmental improvements. The combining EEA-LCA is applied to a cement process.