13. Abiotic Resource Use

Abiotic resource use in life cycle assessment (LCA) deals with the environmental concerns due to the use of resources such as metals, minerals, fossil energy, nuclear energy, atmospheric resources (e.g. argon), and flow energy resources (e.g. wind energy). Land and water may also be considered as abiotic resources, but these are dealt with elsewhere in the book series in dedicated chapters (Chap. 11 Land use by Llorenç Milà i Canals and Laura de Baan and Chap. 12 Water use by Stephan Pfister). Methods that evaluate ‘abiotic resource use’ in LCA were divided in three categories: (1) Resource accounting methods, which are methods that account for the overall natural resource use along the life cycle of a product; (2) Resource depletion methods at the midpoint level, which are methods that address the scarcity of resources (and therefore damage to the area of protection Resources), but at a midpoint level; and (3) Resource depletion methods at the endpoint level, which are methods that address the scarcity of resources at an endpoint level. Numerous methods are presented in this chapter, with different concepts and approaches. However, several gaps still exist in the evaluation of abiotic resource use in LCA, and more research is needed.