This document discusses Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which aims to understand the environmental impacts of a product over its full life cycle from resource extraction to disposal. The key points made are: - LCA identifies and measures various environmental impacts at each stage of a product's life cycle. - The goal of LCA is to pinpoint environmentally critical points in a product's life cycle and find ways to reduce impacts through alternative materials or processes. - There are different types of LCA depending on which stages are analyzed, such as cradle-to-grave, cradle-to-gate, wheel-to-wheel. - The LCA process involves goal definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment,

1. LIFE CYCLE
ASSESSMENT
S.G.Mohanapourani,
2015006028,
III- B.Sc., Horticulture,
HC&RIW, TNAU, Trichy.

2. • LCA stands for Life Cycle Assessment.
• It is a technique that tries to identify, measure
and characterize different potential
environmental impacts associated to each one
of the stages of the life cycle of a product
What is LCA?

4. LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT PROCESS

5. What LCA aims at?
• LCA aims to understand the flows of matter and
energy involved in the product, material,
manufacturing process, packaging, etc. and find out
what are the environmentally critical points, and
prevent or remove them using other materials or
systems

6. TYPES OF LCA
• Cradle-to-Grave
• Cradle-to-Gate
• Cradle-to-Cradle
• Gate-to-Gate
• Wheel-to-Wheel
• Ecology-based

7. CRADLE-TO-GRAVE
• Cradle-to-grave is the full Life Cycle Assessment from
resource extraction ('cradle') to use phase and
disposal phase ('grave').

8. CRADLE-TO-GATE
• Cradle-to-gate is an assessment of a partial product
life cycle from resource extraction (cradle) to the
factory gate (i.e., before it is transported to the
consumer)

9. CRADLE-TO-CRADLE
• Cradle-to-cradle is a specific kind of cradle-to-grave
assessment, where the end-of-life disposal step for
the product is a recycling process.
• It is a method used to minimize the environmental
impact of products by employing sustainable
production, operation, and disposal practices and
aims to incorporate social responsibility into product
development.

10. GATE-TO-GATE
• Gate-to-gate is a partial LCA looking at only one
value-added process in the entire production chain.

11. WHEEL-TO-WHEEL
• Well-to-wheel is the specific LCA used for transport
fuels and vehicles.
• The first stage, which incorporates the feedstock or
fuel production and processing and fuel delivery or
energy transmission, and is called the "upstream"
stage.
• The stage that deals with vehicle operation itself is
sometimes called the "downstream“ stage.

12. ECOLOGY-BASED
• Eco-LCA is a methodology that quantitatively takes
into account regulating and supporting services
during the life cycle of economic goods and products.
• It was designed to provide a guide to wise
management of human activities by understanding
the direct and indirect impacts on ecological
resources and surrounding ecosystems

13. WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH LCA?
• 1.Product or project development and improvement
• 2.Strategic planning
• 3.Public policy making
• 4.Marketing and eco-declarations

14. Processes involved in LCA

15. PHASES OF LCA STUDY

16. Phase of goal and scope definition
• This is a key step and the ISO standards require that the
goal and scope of an LCA be clearly defined and
consistent with the intended application.
• The goal and scope document therefore includes
technical details that guide subsequent work

17. Steps involved in Goal and scope
definition
• Product system to study
• The functions of the product system
• The functional unit
• The system limits
• Assumptions
• Limitations
• Data Requirements

18. Phase of inventory analysis
• Inventory’ literally means listing of products.
• Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) analysis involves creating an
inventory of flows from and to nature for a product
system.
• Inventory flows include inputs of water, energy, and
raw materials, and releases to air, land, and water.
• It also involves data collection and quantification of
needed input/output data.

19. Phase of impact assessment
• Environmental impact is an alteration of the
initial characteristics of the environment caused
by a project,work or activity.
• It is the set of consequences for human health,
welfare of the flora and fauna and the future
availability of natural resources attributable to
the input or output streams of a system.

20. STEPS INVOLVED
This process comprises of the following procedures:
• selection of impact categories, category indicators, and
characterization models;
• the classification stage, where the inventory parameters
are sorted and assigned to specific impact categories;
• impact measurement, where the categorized LCI flow are
characterized

21. Phase of interpretation
• Life Cycle Interpretation is a systematic technique to
identify, quantify, check, and evaluate information
from the results of the life cycle inventory and/or the
life cycle impact assessment.
• The results from the inventory analysis and impact
assessment are summarized during the
interpretation phase.
• The outcome of the interpretation phase is a set of
conclusions and recommendations for the study.

22. THANK YOU !