A or I-A? Unifying the computational structures of process- and IO-based LCA for clarity and consistency

Reinout Heijungs*, Yi Yang, Hung Suck Park

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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Abstract

Why are both (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.) used in life cycle assessment (LCA) matrix computations? This is a question that, in our experience of teaching LCA, students often wonder about and struggle with. A brief survey of the literature suggests that the question can also confuse experienced LCA practitioners. Here, we seek to unify the computational structures of the two LCA approaches to achieve greater clarity and consistency, especially to make them easier to teach. We first show how small but crucial differences in the set-up of the two approaches lead to the use of (Formula presented.) versus (Formula presented.). Then, we discuss the options to unify the presentations in a coherent way. We do not prescribe one way or the other. A larger point we hope to stress is the importance of unification, which may have both pedagogical and methodological benefits.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1824-1836
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Industrial Ecology
Volume26
Issue number5
Early online date7 Oct 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Hung‐Suck Park acknowledges funding from the Basic Research Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) provided by the Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF‐2020R1I1A2072313). Yi Yang was partly supported by the NRF under a Korean Brainpool grant (2020H1D3A2A01093596). The reviewers, including Anders Hammer Strømman, provided a number of useful suggestions.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the International Society for Industrial Ecology.

Funding

Hung‐Suck Park acknowledges funding from the Basic Research Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) provided by the Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF‐2020R1I1A2072313). Yi Yang was partly supported by the NRF under a Korean Brainpool grant (2020H1D3A2A01093596). The reviewers, including Anders Hammer Strømman, provided a number of useful suggestions.

FundersFunder number
Ministry of Science, ICT and Future PlanningNRF‐2020R1I1A2072313, 2020H1D3A2A01093596
National Research Foundation of Korea

    Keywords

    • education and training
    • hybrid life cycle assessment
    • IO-based life cycle assessment
    • life cycle assessment
    • process analysis
    • process-based life cycle assessment

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