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The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment

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01.07.2015 | LIFE CYCLE SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT

Introducing carrying capacity-based normalisation in LCA: framework and development of references at midpoint level

verfasst von: Anders Bjørn, Michael Zwicky Hauschild

Erschienen in: The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment | Ausgabe 7/2015

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Abstract

Purpose

There is currently a weak or no link between the indicator scores quantified in life cycle assessment (LCA) and the carrying capacity of the affected ecosystems. Such a link must be established if LCA is to support assessments of environmental sustainability and it may be done by developing carrying capacity-based normalisation references. The purpose of this article is to present a framework for normalisation against carrying capacity-based references and to develop average normalisation references (NR) for Europe and the world for all those midpoint impact categories commonly included in LCA that link to the natural environment area of protection.

Methods

Carrying capacity was in this context defined as the maximum sustained environmental intervention a natural system can withstand without experiencing negative changes in structure or functioning that are difficult or impossible to revert. A literature review was carried out to identify scientifically sound thresholds for each impact category. Carrying capacities were then calculated from these thresholds and expressed in metrics identical to midpoint indicators giving priority to those recommended by ILCD. NR was expressed as the carrying capacity of a reference region divided by its population and thus describes the annual personal share of the carrying capacity.

Results and discussion

The developed references can be applied to indicator results obtained using commonly applied characterisation models in LCIA. The European NR are generally lower than the global NR, mainly due to a relatively high population density in Europe. The NR were compared to conventional normalisation references (NR′) which represent the aggregated interventions for Europe or the world in a recent reference year. For both scales, the aggregated intervention for climate change, photochemical ozone formation and soil quality were found to exceed carrying capacities several times.

Conclusions

The developed carrying capacity-based normalisation references offer relevant supplementary reference information to the currently applied references based on society’s background interventions by supporting an evaluation of the environmental sustainability of product systems on an absolute scale.

Recommendations

Challenges remain with respect to spatial variations to increase the relevance of the normalisation references for impact categories that function at the local or regional scale. The sensitivity of NR to different choices, e.g. threshold value, should be quantified with the aim of understanding and managing uncertainties of NR. For complete coverage of the midpoint impact categories, normalisation references based on sustainability preconditions should be developed for those categories that link to the areas of protection human health and natural resources.

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The concept of resilience may offer a bridge between anthropocentric and eco-centric approaches to environmental management since studies generally show that ecosystems with high genotype diversity and species diversity has a high resilience, meaning in general terms, that they are better at adapting to sudden changes in conditions than ecosystems with lower diversity (Scheffer et al. 2001; Carpenter et al. 2001). The protection of ecosystem structure can therefore be seen both as eco-centric and as being in the enlightened self-interest of man.

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The difference between these two rules is not trivial. Consider the potentially large differences between per capita domestic carrying capacities of Canada and Singapore for the many impact categories related to the availability of land and water as source or sink.

A hysteresis is a phenomenon which causes the exceedance of a threshold to be difficult to revert because the natural system has entered a new stable state characterized by stabilizing feedback mechanisms. In practice, this means that a reduction in environmental intervention of a similar magnitude as the increase in interventions that previously caused the threshold to be exceeded is not sufficient to bring the system back to its original state. Hysteresis has been observed for e.g. the response of shallow lakes to changes in phosphorous loadings (Scheffer 2001).

For instance, increased run-off due to the exceedance of the climate change carrying capacity can lead to a higher loss of reactive nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizer application, thereby increasing the risk of exceeding carrying capacities for freshwater and marine eutrophication. See Steffen et al. (2015) for elaboration on this topic.

Midpoint is here understood as the point at which the impact pathway of different substances converge (Hauschild et al. 2013). Because this point of convergence varies the impact pathway location of the midpoint varies across impact categories. In comparison the endpoint is consistently located at the of the impact pathway and typically expressed in a metric related to the disappearance of species (Hauschild et al. 2013).

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Titel: Introducing carrying capacity-based normalisation in LCA: framework and development of references at midpoint level
verfasst von: Anders Bjørn
Michael Zwicky Hauschild
Publikationsdatum: 01.07.2015
Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Erschienen in: The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment / Ausgabe 7/2015
Print ISSN: 0948-3349
Elektronische ISSN: 1614-7502
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-015-0899-2

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Abstract

Purpose

Methods

Results and discussion

Conclusions

Recommendations

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