134
most effective way to augment a design workflow to yield supportable insights on
environmental impacts throughout a system’s life cycle.
8.2 Life Cycle Impact Assessment and Interpretation
After collecting all of the LCI data, the next step for an LCA practitioner is to move
into the impact assessment phase of the study as defined in ISO 14044, if this is part
of the goal and scope of the study. Non-geometric impact assessment results from
numerous studies on each material are embedded in software packages augmenting
geometric design modelers and are invisible to the designer. A schematic understanding of these quantitative techniques, however, can provide insight to the nonspecialist and increase the confidence in the use of software that can improve
judgment regarding sustainable design decisions.
There are numerous absolute evaluative techniques such as environmental performance evaluation, environmental impact assessment, and risk assessment that
may be used to inform the relative LCIA results that revolve around the user-defined
functional unit and the initial goal and scope of the study. Anchoring results to the
functional unit maintains the internal logic of the system study, helping to evaluate
and manage uncertainty caused by data quality issues, boundary cutoff decisions,
and the relevance of the results that can decrease depending on the way the LCI
functional unit is calculated, how results are averaged, aggregated, and allocated
within the entire product system.
Impact assessments are provided for each impact category (see Chap. 5) that is
material to the study. The LCA expert selects from among many midpoint categories such as climate change, acidification, eutrophication, abiotic depletion, stratospheric ozone destruction, and endpoint damage categories such as human health,
natural resources/ecosystem services, ecosystem quality, and anthropogenic impacts
and assigns environmentally relevant quantifiable category indicators, for example,
the amount of infrared radiative forcing expressed in W/m
3
caused by the greenhouse emissions created within a product system.
Characterization models such as the IPCC baseline model of 100-year timeframe
are used to produce characterization factors (CFs) used to convert the raw LCI data
into common units that can be aggregated and applied within an impact category.
LCIA research continues to evolve, data continue to multiply, and accuracy in
impact category indicators continue to improve (Hauschild et al. 2013).
Several non-mandatory elements can also be used to inform and qualify the
impact assessment. Normalization of category indicator results against a baseline
reference indicator is one. Impact category grouping after sorting and subjectively
ranking them based on priorities important to an individual or group is another.
Subjectively weighting results is a third. In every case, indicator results prior to any
of these optional processes is ideally provided to ensure transparency and adherence
to generally accepted reporting protocols.
8 Dashboard
most effective way to augment a design workflow to yield supportable insights on
environmental impacts throughout a system’s life cycle.
8.2 Life Cycle Impact Assessment and Interpretation
After collecting all of the LCI data, the next step for an LCA practitioner is to move
into the impact assessment phase of the study as defined in ISO 14044, if this is part
of the goal and scope of the study. Non-geometric impact assessment results from
numerous studies on each material are embedded in software packages augmenting
geometric design modelers and are invisible to the designer. A schematic understanding of these quantitative techniques, however, can provide insight to the nonspecialist and increase the confidence in the use of software that can improve
judgment regarding sustainable design decisions.
There are numerous absolute evaluative techniques such as environmental performance evaluation, environmental impact assessment, and risk assessment that
may be used to inform the relative LCIA results that revolve around the user-defined
functional unit and the initial goal and scope of the study. Anchoring results to the
functional unit maintains the internal logic of the system study, helping to evaluate
and manage uncertainty caused by data quality issues, boundary cutoff decisions,
and the relevance of the results that can decrease depending on the way the LCI
functional unit is calculated, how results are averaged, aggregated, and allocated
within the entire product system.
Impact assessments are provided for each impact category (see Chap. 5) that is
material to the study. The LCA expert selects from among many midpoint categories such as climate change, acidification, eutrophication, abiotic depletion, stratospheric ozone destruction, and endpoint damage categories such as human health,
natural resources/ecosystem services, ecosystem quality, and anthropogenic impacts
and assigns environmentally relevant quantifiable category indicators, for example,
the amount of infrared radiative forcing expressed in W/m
3
caused by the greenhouse emissions created within a product system.
Characterization models such as the IPCC baseline model of 100-year timeframe
are used to produce characterization factors (CFs) used to convert the raw LCI data
into common units that can be aggregated and applied within an impact category.
LCIA research continues to evolve, data continue to multiply, and accuracy in
impact category indicators continue to improve (Hauschild et al. 2013).
Several non-mandatory elements can also be used to inform and qualify the
impact assessment. Normalization of category indicator results against a baseline
reference indicator is one. Impact category grouping after sorting and subjectively
ranking them based on priorities important to an individual or group is another.
Subjectively weighting results is a third. In every case, indicator results prior to any
of these optional processes is ideally provided to ensure transparency and adherence
to generally accepted reporting protocols.
8 Dashboard