ABSTRACT
IntroductionEnvironmental policy makers use life cycle assessment (LCA) to reduce scientific uncertainties about the environmental impact of technologies and products. However, the structure of the U.S. policymaking system often acts as a roadblock to the use of LCA outputs in decision making. Over the past two decades, life cycle assessment has had limited impact in determining U.S. environmental policy, either as a specific quantitative indicator or as a general outlook toward the environment. In this chapter, I discuss specific characteristics of the U.S. political system, which often make uncertainty-reducing assessments like life cycle assessment fail in a decision-making context: the incremental nature of the U.S. policy-making system; the
place-based nature of environmental politics in the United States; and the uncertainties associated with most environmental and scientific challenges. These three essential components of environmental policy-making in the United States pose inherent challenges to the use of life cycle assessment perspectives in policy debates. We cannot look at life cycle assessment or any other environmental decision tool in a vacuum. The effectiveness of such tools hinges on the way they interact with the political context in which environmental decisions are made. To maximize the practical relevance of tools such as LCA, we must tailor them to suit the real world of environmental politics. In this chapter, I attempt to explain the limited scope of LCA in U.S. policy-making by taking a look at the unique benefits of LCA outputs and then viewing these against the backdrop of the U.S. environmental policy-making context. In doing so, I first present a historical overview of the relationship between life cycle assessments and policy-making; next I explain the incremental nature of U.S. policy-making, the role of uncertainty in the policy-making, and the place-based nature of U.S. policy-making. The end of this chapter ties its environmental policy-making lessons together with a look at the role of life cycle assessment in the politics of climate change in the United States. The purpose of this volume is to consider how we might increase the scope and effectiveness of life cycle assessments. In this volume, many authors have indicated some of the technical areas where LCA methodology should be refined. I argue that beyond these technical alterations, improving the “fit” of life cycle assessment outputs into the U.S. policy-making context is an important way to make LCA more effective. Without proper appreciation and consideration of the constraints posed by the relevant political context, the practitioners will continue to experience frustration in achieving the necessary political relevance of LCA-even as the methodology evolves. Methodology and studies should be designed to not only enhance the scientific and the technical validity of an LCA but also to maximize their political efficacy and the probability that LCA outputs actually inform policy debates-both goals are equally important and should be pursued simultaneously.
