Abstract
Two analytic perspectives on environmental assessment dominate environmental policy and decision-making: risk analysis (RA) and life-cycle assessment (LCA). RA focuses on management of a toxicological hazard in a specific exposure scenario, while LCA seeks a holistic estimation of impacts of thousands of substances across multiple media, including non-toxicological and non-chemically deleterious effects. While recommendations to integrate the two approaches have remained a consistent feature of environmental scholarship for at least 15 years, the current perception is that progress is slow largely because of practical obstacles, such as a lack of data, rather than insurmountable theoretical difficulties. Nonetheless, the emergence of nanotechnology presents a serious challenge to both perspectives. Because the pace of nanomaterial innovation far outstrips acquisition of environmentally relevant data, it is now clear that a further integration of RA and LCA based on dataset completion will remain futile. In fact, the two approaches are suited for different purposes and answer different questions. A more pragmatic approach to providing better guidance to decision-makers is to apply the two methods in parallel, integrating only after obtaining separate results.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported in parts by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Army Environmental Quality Research Program (E. Ferguson, Technical Director) and Assistance Agreement No. RD83558001 awarded by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It has not been formally reviewed by the EPA. The views expressed in this document are solely those of the authors. Neither the EPA nor the US Army endorse any products or commercial services mentioned in this publication. Thanks to G. Shephard for his illustrative support.
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Linkov, I., Trump, B., Wender, B. et al. Integrate life-cycle assessment and risk analysis results, not methods. Nature Nanotech 12, 740–743 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2017.152
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2017.152
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