ABSTRACT
WHILE LIFE-CYCLE ANALYSIS AND ITS SUBSET, CARBON FOOTPRINTING, are powerful tools for tracking the environmental impact of a product, there are certain inherent theoretical drawbacks to these methodologies (Lave et al. 1995). Perhaps the most important of the limitations to this type of engineering, process-based analysis is the somewhat arbitrary definition of the system boundary. The analysis is usually limited, by necessity, to what are perceived to be the most important negative environmental impacts from the chain of production. This presents a classic systems problem, as it is not always clear how much of the total impact has been captured within the defined boundaries of the analysis. By way of example, Lester Lave of Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Engineering has developed a methodology for expanding the analysis to include, in theory, all the possible impacts of any given pollutant release throughout the entire chain of production. The essence of this analytical approach rests on input-output analysis, which has the capacity to track the multitude of direct and indirect relationships among all sectors of a national economy.
