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Mineral resources in life cycle impact assessment—part I: a critical review of existing methods

The international journal of life cycle assessment, 2020-04, Vol.25 (4), p.784-797 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020 ;The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment is a copyright of Springer, (2020). All Rights Reserved. ;ISSN: 0948-3349 ;EISSN: 1614-7502 ;DOI: 10.1007/s11367-020-01736-6

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  • Title:
    Mineral resources in life cycle impact assessment—part I: a critical review of existing methods
  • Author: Sonderegger, Thomas ; Berger, Markus ; Alvarenga, Rodrigo ; Bach, Vanessa ; Cimprich, Alexander ; Dewulf, Jo ; Frischknecht, Rolf ; Guinée, Jeroen ; Helbig, Christoph ; Huppertz, Tom ; Jolliet, Olivier ; Motoshita, Masaharu ; Northey, Stephen ; Rugani, Benedetto ; Schrijvers, Dieuwertje ; Schulze, Rita ; Sonnemann, Guido ; Valero, Alicia ; Weidema, Bo P. ; Young, Steven B.
  • Subjects: Conferences ; Depletion ; Earth and Environmental Science ; Environment ; Environmental Chemistry ; Environmental Economics ; Environmental Engineering/Biotechnology ; Lcia of Impacts on Human Health and Ecosystems ; Life cycle assessment ; Life cycles ; Methods ; Mineral resources ; Natural resources ; Reviews ; Task forces
  • Is Part Of: The international journal of life cycle assessment, 2020-04, Vol.25 (4), p.784-797
  • Description: Purpose The safeguard subject of the Area of Protection “natural Resources,” particularly regarding mineral resources, has long been debated. Consequently, a variety of life cycle impact assessment methods based on different concepts are available. The Life Cycle Initiative, hosted by the UN Environment, established an expert task force on “Mineral Resources” to review existing methods (this article) and provide guidance for application-dependent use of the methods and recommendations for further methodological development (Berger et al. in Int J Life Cycle Assess, 2020 ). Methods Starting in 2017, the task force developed a white paper, which served as its main input to a SETAC Pellston Workshop® in June 2018, in which a sub-group of the task force members developed recommendations for assessing impacts of mineral resource use in LCA. This article, based mainly on the white paper and pre-workshop discussions, presents a thorough review of 27 different life cycle impact assessment methods for mineral resource use in the “natural resources” area of protection. The methods are categorized according to their basic impact mechanisms, described and compared, and assessed against a comprehensive set of criteria. Results and discussion Four method categories have been identified and their underlying concepts are described based on existing literature: depletion methods, future efforts methods, thermodynamic accounting methods, and supply risk methods. While we consider depletion and future efforts methods more “traditional” life cycle impact assessment methods, thermodynamic accounting and supply risk methods are rather providing complementary information. Within each method category, differences between methods are discussed in detail, which allows for further sub-categorization and better understanding of what the methods actually assess. Conclusions We provide a thorough review of existing life cycle impact assessment methods addressing impacts of mineral resource use, covering a broad overview of basic impact mechanisms to a detailed discussion of method-specific modeling. This supports a better understanding of what the methods actually assess and highlights their strengths and limitations. Building on these insights, Berger et al. (Int J Life Cycle Assess, 2020 ) provide recommendations for application-dependent use of the methods, along with recommendations for further methodological development.
  • Publisher: Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: ISSN: 0948-3349
    EISSN: 1614-7502
    DOI: 10.1007/s11367-020-01736-6
  • Source: ProQuest Central
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