Critical review and practical recommendations to integrate the spatial dimension into life cycle assessment

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.12.192

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 177, 10 March 2018, Pages 398-412

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.12.192 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Nomenclature and definitions related to the spatial dimension in LCA are proposed.
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Main approaches to integrating the spatial dimension in LCA are reviewed.
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Recommendations to address spatial dimension in LCA are provided.
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A decision-support diagram is proposed to guide LCA practitioners.

Abstract

Addressing the spatial dimension in life cycle assessment (LCA) appears to be a promising avenue to reduce the uncertainty of LCA results. However, to our knowledge, there is no comprehensive literature review on how to integrate geographic aspects at every LCA stage. This study aims to create a common language and build a framework guiding the LCA community to integrate the spatial dimension in LCA towards three specific objectives: (a) to review the literature to synthesize and classify current recommendations and approaches to integrate the spatial dimension in LCA, (b) to analyze each identified approach based on their level of relevance, development and operationalization and (c) to formulate recommendations on how to integrate the spatial dimension in LCA.

From the literature review, 33 recommendations and 37 approaches were identified. The approaches were classified according to the main issue they aim to address when integrating the spatial dimension in LCA: goal and scope, inventory regionalization, inventory spatialization, regionalized impact calculation, impact regionalization, interpretation and application in LCA software. Then, each approach was critically and qualitatively assessed against the three following criteria: relevance of the approach, level of development and level of operationalization. Short- and long-term recommendations on how to address spatial dimension in LCA for each identified issue and for the different stakeholders in the LCA community were derived from the critical analysis. A decision-support diagram was set up to help for the implementation of the short-term state-of-the-art recommendations and guide LCA practitioners to prioritize inventory regionalization and spatialization efforts.

Introduction

Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was first developed without considering any spatial aspects because spatial differentiation was historically related to site-specific risk assessment while LCA was designed for global pollution prevention (Potting and Hauschild, 2006). But misleading conclusions that may be drawn from a site-generic LCA and the importance of taking spatial differentiation into account in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) was demonstrated (Ross and Evans, 2002). First, activities along the product life cycle and related elementary flows (EF) that constitute the life cycle inventory (LCI) may be geographically scattered owing to the globalization of supply chains. Also, an EF (emission or extraction) in a given area may have a different impact depending on its location. The environmental consequences of the EF may be local, regional, continental or global depending on the type and characteristics of the EF and receiving environment (Potting and Hauschild, 2006).

Addressing the geographic aspects in LCA appears to be a promising avenue to increase the representativeness and reliability of the results (Mutel and Hellweg, 2009). Ultimately, it could improve the discrimination power for comparative LCA (Udo de Haes et al., 1999). Regionalization provides a representative description of processes and phenomena that are spatially variable. Variability involves current variations in the real world and is distinguished from uncertainty, which refers to a lack of knowledge on reality (Huijbregts, 1998). Providing more representative descriptions of spatially variable processes and phenomena should reduce the uncertainty associated with the shortage of information on their spatial location. In addition, more and more regionalized LCI databases (Colomb et al., 2015, Durlinger et al., 2014, Lansche et al., 2013, Vionnet et al., 2012, Weidema et al., 2012) and regionalized LCIA methods are being developed (Bulle et al., 2017, Verones et al., 2016), offering opportunities for LCA practitioners to improve the quality of their studies. However, enhancing geographic representativeness may require an increased workload for the LCA practitioner, specifically in terms of data collection and modeling (Baitz et al., 2012). One of the challenges of integrating regionalization is therefore to find a level of geographic representativeness that is adapted to the study objectives (Patouillard et al., 2016).

It is possible to consider geographic aspects at every phase in LCA methodology (Aissani, 2008; International Organization for Standardization ISO, 2006a, ISO, 2006b):

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The goal and scope (G&S) when defining the object of the study and its spatial requirements
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When regionalizing the inventory, the LCI ensures the better geographic representativeness of the studied systems (inventory regionalization). In addition, attributing a spatial location to the EFs (inventory spatialization) makes it possible to use regionalized characterization factors (CF).
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The LCIA when assessing the spatial variability of impact scores as a function of the characteristics of the receiving environment (impact regionalization)
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The interpretation when identifying the potential transfer of impacts from one geographic location to another

To our knowledge, there is no comprehensive literature review, i.e. peer reviewed article with an exhaustive overview of existing literature, on how to integrate geographic aspects at every stage of LCA or provide guidance on how to regionalize inventory data or handle different resolution scales between the inventory and impact assessment. Furthermore, there is no framework or consistent terminology in relation to spatial aspects in LCA. In this context, the SCORELCA association, which includes leading stakeholders in life cycle thinking (EDF, ENGIE, Renault, Total, Veolia) and the French environmental protection agency (ADEME), and the authors initiated a research study to investigate the interest and relevance of considering and implementing geographic aspects in LCA. This study intends to assist the LCA community to consistently integrate the spatial dimension and create a common language. It further aims to guide LCA practitioners gathering relevant spatial information to increase the robustness of the results through a streamlined process.

Therefore, the main aim of this study is to build a framework to structure and provide recommendations on the use of the different existing approaches to integrating the spatial dimension in LCA. The three objectives of this study are to (a) synthesize and classify current recommendations and approaches to integrate the spatial dimension in LCA, (b) analyze each identified approach based on their level of relevance, development and operationalization and (c) formulate recommendations on how to integrate the spatial dimension in LCA. To achieve those goals, this article is structured in three sections: (a) literature review of existing approaches to integrating the spatial dimension in LCA, (b) critical analysis of the selected approaches, and (c) practical recommendations for the implementation of the approaches by LCA practitioners. The article builds on the report of the SCORELCA study by Patouillard et al. (2015). This work benefitted from the active participation of SCORELCA member experts on the steering committee.

Section snippets

Terminology related to the spatial dimension in LCA

In the literature, numerous terms related to the spatial dimension in LCA are inconsistently used and often not clearly defined. Therefore, we propose the following terminology and definitions based on the literature review.

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Economic flow: An exchange with the technosphere, i.e. an intermediate exchange of goods or services
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Elementary flow (EF): An exchange with the ecosphere (to/from the environment)
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Process: A unit process that describes an activity (ecoinvent). It lists the exchanges with the

Literature review

In total, 75 references were consulted as part of the literature review, leading to 33 recommendations on geographic representativeness requirements in LCA and 37 approaches addressing the spatial dimension in LCA. The 15 references used to identify the recommendations have been written between 2006 and 2014, and are standards or directives or reports that claim to provide recommendations in LCA. The 60 references used to identify the approaches have been written between 1996 and 2017 but 50%

Conclusion

Building on an extensive critical review from the literature, this study identified the state of the art on how to integrate the spatial dimension in LCA, highlighted practical and conceptual obstacles and created a common language. Recommendations were formulated for LCA practitioners, LCI database developers, LCIA method developers, LCA software developers and LCA researchers to enhance the integration of the spatial dimension in LCA on the short and the long term.

A decision-support diagram

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the SCORELCA Foundation. We would like to express our gratitude to the SCORELCA Foundation and to all SCORELCA members for their contributions to this research.

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View full text

ReviewCritical review and practical recommendations to integrate the spatial dimension into life cycle assessment

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Terminology related to the spatial dimension in LCA

Literature review

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev.

Biomass Bioenergy

J. Clean. Prod.

Biomass Bioenergy

Environ. Int.

J. Environ. Manage

Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev.

Resour. Conserv. Recycl.

J. Clean. Prod.

Intégration des paramètres spatio-temporels et des risques d’accident à l’analyse du cycle de vie: application à la filière hydrogène énergie et à la filière essence

Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Etienne

LCA's theory and practice: like ebony and ivory living in perfect harmony?

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Survey of approaches to improve reliability in LCA

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Review
Critical review and practical recommendations to integrate the spatial dimension into life cycle assessment

Uncertainty in LCA LCA methodology application of uncertainty and variability in LCA Part I : a general framework for the analysis of uncertainty and variability in life cycle assessment