Shift of Paradigm — Propositions — Objectives

In Chapter 1 we situated LCA within the decision making process and in relationship to other decision support tools. LCA has been identified as only one of the perspectives that can be used when assessing human activities from an environmental perspective. There exists a large number of competing tools, each with its own characteristics, that differ from those of LCA. Therefore, LCA sensu stricto as used in this book was defined in Subsection 1.2.6. However, the two following main criticisms towards LCA have not been answered with this clarification of what LCA sensu stricto is and what it can and cannot do (see, e.g., Barnthouse et al. 1997): (1) LCA cannot strictly separate objective and subjective elements, and (2) LCA does not have an acceptable way to model impacts.