School of Geography - Theses
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ItemThe use of life cycle assessment in environmental impact assessment( 2003)The increasing use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in environmental management reflects a shift by some practitioners away from project-level to system-level whole-oflife assessment. However, despite growing support for the adoption of this approach to understanding the impacts on the environment of decisions made within the economy, some researchers have questioned the validity o f the results obtained from it. Moreover, the pressure to cut comers and generate conclusions of value to the client has meant that many LCA studies have been criticized for making claims that cannot be justified by the results. Indeed, when these concerns are contrasted with the success to date of projectlevel EIA methods, it comes as no surprise that some people doubt whether LCA has a future as an environmental impact assessment method. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to determine whether LCA can be a useful tool in environmental impact assessment. To achieve this aim I begin by classifying problems linked to the release of waste into the environment into two groups, acute and cumulative. I then use this framework to compare the advantages and disadvantages of a range of environmental impact assessment methods, including LCA. During my critique of LCA, I focus on the problem o f uncertainty, and discuss the implications for impact assessment of a lack of site-specific information in the inventory. This analysis leads to a research program that examines the use of LCA in environmental impact assessment. The program comprises: (1) an investigation into how practitioners report the problem of uncertainty in their studies; (2) a case study that examines one way of improving the reliability of LCA results; and (3) a case study that explores the relevance of LCA results for policy development. The conclusions drawn from this thesis are that LCA is not suitable for identifying single-concentrated sources of pollutants and quantifying the direct impacts of particular economic activities. Such an analysis should be left to project-level EIA methods. However, it is possible for LCA to generate useful insight into the management of large-scale environmental effects provided that practitioners collect the spatial and temporal data needed to reliably assess them. If this is done, then LCA is a powerful tool for the development of policy strategies for the management o f cumulative environmental problems.