The formulation of life cycle impact assessment framework for Malaysia using Eco-indicator

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an emerging supporting tool designed to help practitioner in systematically assessing the environmental performance of selected product’s life cycle. A product’s life cycle includes the extraction of raw materials, production, and usage, and ends with waste treatment or disposal. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) as a part of LCA is a method used to derive the environmental burdens from selected product’s stages. LCIA is structured in classification, characterization, normalization and weighting. Presently most of the LCIA practices use European database to establish the characterization, normalization and weighting value. However, using these values for local LCA practice might not be able to reflect the actual Malaysian’s environmental scenario. The aim of this study is to create a Malaysian version of normalization and weighting value using the pollution database within Malaysia.

This research work used the LCIA top-down approach of the Eco-indicator 99 impact assessment methodology as a guide for the formulation of normalization and weighting value. Normalization values were formulated based on Malaysia’s pollutant emission rate while the weighting values were formulated using the results of questionnaire survey that was distributed among local LCA practitioner and experts.

The results from the studies showed that the normalization values for Malaysia in average are four times higher compared to European value while the weighting values for Malaysia are almost similar to the reference European value.

In this study, an attempt was made to formulate Malaysian normalization and weighting values of the LCIA step using the Eco-indicator methodology. By adopting these values, the LCA study conducted will be more accurate and meaningful in evaluating Malaysian environmental impact.

As a recommendation, this study can be further expanded by using different type of software and different type of method in formulating the normalization and weighting values. Besides that, a better collection with more recent data should be use for estimation of the normalization values. While in the weighting values estimation, a bigger size and different social background of panel should be used in the questionnaire survey approach to indicate different perception of average Malaysian citizen on environmental concerns.