ABSTRACT
Life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) aims at understanding and quantifying the magnitude and significance of the potential environmental impacts of an industrial process chain or products throughout its entire life cycle. Understanding these impacts is the first step in prevention, reduction and remediation actions. Life-cycle impact assessment consists of mandatory elements, which are the selection of impact categories, category indicators, and characterization models; the classification stage, where the inventory parameters are sorted and assigned to specific impact categories; and impact measurement, where the categorized inventory flows are characterized, using one of many possible LCIA methodologies, into common equivalence units that are then summed to provide an overall result per impact category. In many LCAs, characterization concludes the LCIA step; this is also the last compulsory stage according to ISO 14044 (2006). However, in addition to the earlier mandatory LCIA steps, other optional LCIA elements – normalization, grouping, and weighting – may be conducted depending on the goal and scope of the LCA study. This chapter provides an introduction to LCIA and some of its sophistications. Case studies are presented for a waste incinerator and an organic photovoltaic device.
