By Susan Thorneloe

The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Program within Research Triangle Institute’s (RTI) Pollution Prevention Program works primarily with federal, state, and local agencies to develop and implement techniques for life cycle environmental and cost assessments. Capabilities are especially strong in methodology and guidelines development, data and computer tools development, and the application of life cycle concepts and LCA in practical studies. Typical LCA and life cycle–related projects include:

• Life cycle management of MSW
• Streamlining life cycle assessment
• Impact assessment
• Data-quality assessment
• Life cycle costing
• Ecoindustrial parks

Life Cycle Management of MSW

Efficient planning for integrated municipal solid waste management (IMSWM) requires accounting for the complete set of environmental effects and costs associated with the entire life cycle of MSW. However, research considering the environmental effects and costs of MSW management has traditionally focused on individual processes and not the combination of processes that makes up the IMSWM system. The objective of this research is to apply life cycle concepts and tools to evaluate IMSWM system designs. This research includes consideration of all life cycle stages from raw-materials acquisition to product manufacturing to disposal and waste management. RTI is currently working with North Carolina State University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Franklin Associates Ltd., and Roy F. Weston to develop a database and a computer-based decision support tool to aid solid waste planners in identifying strategies that minimize both costs borne by local governments and environmental impacts on local communities, regions, or society as a whole.

Streamlining Life Cycle Assessment

Streamlined approaches for conducting LCAs are needed to lower the cost and time involved with LCA and to encourage a broader audience to apply life cycle concepts. RTI is currently working on researching the development and application of streamlined approaches for conducting LCAs. To date, RTI has identified streamlining methods currently employed by LCA practitioners, worked with Franklin Associates to compare "full" and streamlined LCAs for 26 different product systems, examined the utility of streamlined approaches applied for different industries and different end uses (e.g., product design, manufacturing process design, or product comparison), and developed guidelines for streamlining.

Impact Assessment

The life cycle inventory component of LCA includes the compilation of all energy and raw-materials inputs and waste outputs associated with a product system. The next LCA step is to conduct a life cycle impact assessment. The impact assessment focuses on the potential environmental and human-health impacts associated with a given product system based on the life cycle inventory results. As part of this project, RTI examined several key issues associated with conducting an impact assessment, outlined a conceptual framework for conducting impact assessment, and summarized a variety of methods with varying levels of complexity that exhibit applicability to life cycle impact assessment.

Data Quality–Assessment Guidelines

LCAs require the acquisition and synthesis of significant amounts of disparate data. The quality of that data determines the utility of the final LCA. To date, data quality has typically not been specifically addressed in LCAs. As part of this project, RTI outlined a framework for evaluating LCA data for its quality and determined a systematic process for reporting data-quality information in LCAs, evaluated data-quality procedures from a variety of disciplines and integrated these procedures into guidelines for LCA quality, and prepared guidelines for considering data quality in an LCA, selecting data for an LCA, choosing data quality indicators, and improving LCA data quality.

Incorporating Life Cycle Costs Into Decision Making

As part of its Design for the Environment program, USEPA established the Environmental Accounting and Capital Budgeting Project. This project seeks to examine and integrate environmentally related costs into managerial accounting and capital budgeting processes. As part of this project, RTI evaluated project-management software systems and tools typically used to evaluate and manage capital investments. Profiles of project-management software systems and tools were prepared based on the extent to which environmental and life cycle information is incorporated.

Ecoindustrial Parks

Communities of companies modeled after industrial ecosystems consciously collaborate to enhance their economic performance through improved environmental performance. Their design is based, in part, on an understanding of the dynamics of natural systems and includes such features as conversion of wastes into valuable inputs, cogeneration of energy, shared environmental infrastructure, and minimization of material throughput. As part of this project, RTI defined the conceptual foundation, analytical framework, and analytical tools needed by private and public players to develop ecoindustrial parks and demonstrated these tools and the comparative economic advantages through a case study of the proposed ecoindustrial parks in Brownsville, TX, and Matamoros, Mexico.

For further information on Pollution Prevention, contact Jesse Baskir, Ph.D., at the Center for Environmental Analysis: (ph) 919/541-5882, (fx) 919/541-7155, or e-mail jbaskir@rti.org.

For further information on Life Cycle Assessment, contact Keith Weitz at the Center for Environmental Analysis: (ph) 919/541-6973, (fx) 919/541-7155, or e-mail kaw@rti.org.

MSW