Chapter 4
Life Cycle Assessment: Nice to Have
or Essential for Environmental
Footprints?
Abstract The role of life cycle assessment (LCA) in footprinting has been a popular
subject of discussion in the literature. The satisfactory performance of LCA on environmental impact assessment (EIA) could allow many footprint topics to be addressed
under an LCA framework, in particular those that can be measured in relation to a
functional unit. The carbon and abiotic resource footprints are presented as two
examples of such LCA-based footprints, in which a variety of inventory flow associated with human disturbance are compiled and translated into impact scores on
the basis of science-based characterization modeling. On the other hand, however,
narrowing environmental footprints down to an LCA context is found to create blind
spots, where exhaustive inventory data for compiling or consensus models for characterization of impact pathways are unavailable. Besides, there are certain important
types of questions for which a footprint-type representation is desirable but for which
a life cycle perspective is not or only partially appropriate. The organization environmental footprint (OEF) represents an obvious example of this. As a result, this
chapter argues that footprints are not to be interpreted as a new name for the impact
category indicators defined in LCA and, more importantly, that LCA does not substitute but complements footprint analysis. Further investigation into the relationship
between environmental footprints and LCA would be critical to the development and
refinement of both tools.
Keywords Life cycle assessment (LCA) · Carbon footprint · Global warming
potential (GWP) · Material footprint · Abiotic depletion potential (ADP) ·
Organization environmental footprint (OEF)
4.1 Introduction
The communities of environmental footprints and life cycle assessment (LCA) have
lived separately for a long time, but with the advent of the carbon footprint as an LCA
tool, the two worlds seem to assimilate. However, there is a tremendous amount of
ambiguity, confusion, and controversy surrounding the relationship between environmental footprints and LCA. Is an impact category indicator in LCA the same as
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
K. Fang, Environmental Footprints,
SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61018-0_4
59
Life Cycle Assessment: Nice to Have
or Essential for Environmental
Footprints?
Abstract The role of life cycle assessment (LCA) in footprinting has been a popular
subject of discussion in the literature. The satisfactory performance of LCA on environmental impact assessment (EIA) could allow many footprint topics to be addressed
under an LCA framework, in particular those that can be measured in relation to a
functional unit. The carbon and abiotic resource footprints are presented as two
examples of such LCA-based footprints, in which a variety of inventory flow associated with human disturbance are compiled and translated into impact scores on
the basis of science-based characterization modeling. On the other hand, however,
narrowing environmental footprints down to an LCA context is found to create blind
spots, where exhaustive inventory data for compiling or consensus models for characterization of impact pathways are unavailable. Besides, there are certain important
types of questions for which a footprint-type representation is desirable but for which
a life cycle perspective is not or only partially appropriate. The organization environmental footprint (OEF) represents an obvious example of this. As a result, this
chapter argues that footprints are not to be interpreted as a new name for the impact
category indicators defined in LCA and, more importantly, that LCA does not substitute but complements footprint analysis. Further investigation into the relationship
between environmental footprints and LCA would be critical to the development and
refinement of both tools.
Keywords Life cycle assessment (LCA) · Carbon footprint · Global warming
potential (GWP) · Material footprint · Abiotic depletion potential (ADP) ·
Organization environmental footprint (OEF)
4.1 Introduction
The communities of environmental footprints and life cycle assessment (LCA) have
lived separately for a long time, but with the advent of the carbon footprint as an LCA
tool, the two worlds seem to assimilate. However, there is a tremendous amount of
ambiguity, confusion, and controversy surrounding the relationship between environmental footprints and LCA. Is an impact category indicator in LCA the same as
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
K. Fang, Environmental Footprints,
SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61018-0_4
59