This page is aimed at people working in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).
So, I'm assuming, you're familiar with LCA's.
Anyway, here is a short introduction on LCA in product design.... and here is a longer introduction.
And here is a short description in German.

For more general environmental information and provocative thoughts, I recommend the sites of The World Resources Institute (WRI, in English) and "Erklärung von Bern" (EvB, in German) both containing essays at the fringes of technological environmental care worth reading.

Contents (in probable order of decreasing interest to you)

Homepages of LCA sites

Other hotlists on LCA

Results of LCA case studies

Descriptions of LCA methodology, theoretical frameworks

LCA Software (demos and reviews)

Inventory data (input data to an LCA)

Newsletters on LCA

E-Mail discussion groups (mail lists)

ISO 14'000 series stuff

Misc. related texts and non-science

Who wrote this page?

Share with me

Homepages of LCA sites

Link	Description	Origin
The Ecological Footprint webpage	A short introduction to the Ecological Footprint concept for assessing sustainability. Footprints represent the land area necessary to buffer the levels of environmental impact due to the analysed lifestyle or national consumption. It heeds something LCA usually doesn't: sustainable and egalitarian use of "ecologically productive" resources. By Dr. Mathis Wackernagel (partly in Spanish).	Redefining Progress, Oakland, CA, USA
CML	Centre of Environmental Science Leiden (Centruum voor Milieukunde Leiden) - Origin of the CML classification method, which is now being updated.	Leiden, Netherlands
SETAC	Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. A lean homepage. Including the SETAC LCA newsletter (last edition Nov 99) and publications.	Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), Pensacola, Florida, USA
The Life Cycle Initiative	An UNEP / SETAC co-operation on best available practice in LCA. Its objectives are: to harmonise existing bodies of LCA knowledge; to stimulate multidisciplinary scientific work; to create reviewed, publicly accessible LCI databases in order to facilitate inventory analysis and improve the reliability of its results; to establish a best available impact assessment (LCIA) practice and present case studies; to ensure that the use of LCA is globally possible, including developing countries.	United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Division of Technology, Industry & Economics Production and Consumption Unit (DTIE), Paris, France
LCANET	LCANET is a concerted action for establishing a European Network for Strategic LCA Research and Development. The task of this network is to describe the state-of-the-art of LCA methodology and to provide input to the EU Environment and Climate research and development programme. Project runned until June 97. Followup is the CHAINET Programme.	Server located at CML Leiden, Netherlands
CHAINET	European network project on linking scientific communities, problem owners and stakeholders, establishing a information toolbox for chain analysis, investigating of three selected cases (automobiles, consumer electronics, domestic clothes washing). Followup of the LCANET project. Project runned until Dec 99.	European. Server located at CML Leiden, Netherlands
U.S. EPA LCA resources page	A list of publications, books, standards and web-sites that contain information on both managing and conducting an LCA	U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
TU Delft	Design for Sustainability at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (Newsletter, Idemat, Ecodesign 3)	Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Steven Young's LCA Website	Small, well structured website on LCA, with references, hotlists. A bit out of date though: Last update is Jan 98 and hence the site is in danger of being moved to my 'LCA cold-list' ;-)	SB Young Consulting, associated with University of Toronto, Canada
LCA in Australia	Homepage of the Centre for Design (CfD) - Design for Environment (DfE). Containing LCA definitions, a short hotlist, description of the EcoReDesign(TM)-Project & ...	Royal Melbourne Institue of Technology (RMIT), Australia
Introduction to LCA at ecobilan	LCA Homepage of ecobilan (DfE). Contains e.g. LCA History, LCA and Environmental Management, Limits of LCA...	Ecobilan, France
ESU publications	Mostly german publications of the former energy-materials-environment group (Energie-Stoffe-Umwelt, ESU) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETHZ)	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETHZ), Switzerland
The late Ecosite	Ecosite - a commercial LCA site - has been a good site for interested beginners. But as it is now more scarcely updated than my own hotlist - hardly believable, but true ;-) - it can safely be pronounced officially dead (last news entry Dec 97). I shall move this link to my soon-to-come 'LCA cold-list' ;-) Included informative, concise news headlines for the LCA community - with that pinch of British humour.	various companies - server located in England

Other hotlists on LCA

Link	Description	Origin
Tom Gloria's LCA Links	Up-to-date, well structured site of about 500+ links on LCA (!!), with possibly every organisation on the net involved in LCA (GO's and NGO's, institutes, companies...). Including publications, conferences, etc.	private, affiliated with Tufts University, USA
Swiss LCA people & projects	Index of current and past swiss LCA projects, resulting publications and adresses of involved people and institutions. Includes a publications list and sources too.	Bundesamt für Umwelt, Wald und Landschaft (BUWAL), Switzerland
Andre Viergever's Environmental links	One huge, commented and very well structured hotlist with 600+ worldwide links on Environmental Management Systems, ISO 14k, LCA, Ecology, Environmental Protection, National State-of-the-Environment Reports, Sustainability and lots more.	Environment Management and Information Liaison (EMAIL), c/o A.L. Viergever, Leiden, Netherlands.
Frank de Bakker's DfE hotlist	Hotlist focussing on Ecodesign (Design for Environment, DfE) and Greening Business. Approx. 160 links of Research Institutions (listed by country) and business sites. Most links concern product-oriented environmental management (POEM), which is the subject of Frank's research.	University of Twente, Faculty of Technology & Management, Netherlands
Kohmei Halada's LCA/Ecodesign hotlist	Fairly well structured, annotated hotlist with 100+ links on LCA and EcoDesign sites and institutes. Also fairly old (last update Dec 97) and soon to be found on my 'LCA cold-list' ;-)	Dr. Kohmei Halada, National Research Institute for Metals (NRIM), Japan

Results of LCA case studies

Link	Description	Origin
Online LCA caculator of food consumption (in German)	Online environmental valuation of your personal food consumption habits (for vegetables and meat, that is). Includes full chain (production, transport, packaging, preparation and disposal!); valuation with UBP97, comparison with average Swiss consumption and tips for ecological improvement. Graduation paper by Adrian Epp & Alex Reichenbach August 1999. Nice work; lads. Sorry, in German only.	UNS, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Biogenic waste LCA	"Ecologic, energetic and economic comparison of treating biogenic wastes by digesting, composting or incinerating" by Werner Edelmann and Konrad Schleiss. A paper written for the R99 conference. Includes LCA of five 10kt/a-plants valuated with Eco-indicator95+ and UBP97.	"Arbeitsgemeinschaft Bioenergie arbi" and "Umwelt- und Kompostberatung Baar", Switzerland
Residential home LCA	Complete report "Life cycle analysis of a residential home in Michigan". Includes methodology and data base. Results are total primary energy demand, total climate forcing and life cycle costs. By Steven Blanchard and Peter Reppe.	University of Michigan
Cotton T-Shirt LCA	CEIDOCT-LCA for a cotton T-shirt including various sensitivity analyses.	European Environment Agency (EEA), European Community (EC), Denmark
Batteries for vehicles	EPS-LCA on NiCd batteries for electric vehicles. Summary and full report (4MB PDF).	Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
GHG from Swiss electricity production	Cumulated emissions of Greenhouse gases (GHG) from possible future Swiss electricity production. From the GABE project.	Paul Schearrer Institute (PSI), Würenlingen, Switzerland
Steelmaking Emissions	Cumulated emissions (CO2, NOx, SOx) and required energy for japanese steelmaking from mining to furnace and 9 different treatments. Unfortunately no background information given - but nice graphs.	National Research Institute for Metals (NRIM), Japan
Alloying Elements in Steel	Cumulated emissions (CO2, NOx, SOx) for 11 steel alloying elements - Ni, Si, Mn, Cr, W, Mo, P, B, Nb, V and Ti - compared with iron (Fe). Unfortunately no background information given - but nice, detailed graphs.	National Research Institute for Metals (NRIM), Japan
Alloyed steels	Cumulated emissions (CO2, NOx, SOx) for the production of 17 types of alloyed steel. Unfortunately no background information given - but nice graphs.	National Research Institute for Metals (NRIM), Japan
IDEMAT database	Glimpse online into a excise version of the IDEMAT database for designers, with Eco-indicator valuation. Pretty neat - if it works :-)	Technical University of Delft, Netherlands
EcoScan module names	List of the 260+ module names of materials/processes inventoried in the EcoScan database.	Turtle Bay, Netherlands
LCA of a car	Short, popular presentation of an LCA of a car (in German). By Dieter Teufel, Petra Bauer et al., Umwelt- und Prognose-Institut (UPI), Heidelberg, Germany.	At "Ökopolis", Environmental E-zine, Germany
Footprints of Nations	Online version of the report "Footprints of Nations", that compares the ecological impact of 52 large nations with their respective ecological capacity. Includes a download site of Excel 4.0 data files. By Mathis Wackernagel, Larry Onisto, et al.	Centro de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad at the Universidad Anahuac de Xalapa, Mexico.

LCA Software (demos and reviews)

Softwaredemos are all for Windows-based computer systems only. Since I have an Apple Macintosh I wasn't able to test these demos. But you go now and have fun...

Descriptions of LCA Methodology

Link	Description	Origin
LCA methodology	A very comprehensible introductory essay on LCA methodology	Pré Consultants, Netherlands
Valuation methods	Overview of existing valuation methods. State of play 97 - but might still be useful to explain some concepts. Includes a list of classification weight factors for emissions used in Eco-indicator 95.	Ecosite, England
Bewertungsmethoden	Overview of LCA valuation methods in German. A semester report by Bernhard Reiter, June 1996.	University Onsnabrück, Germany
CML'01 - the update of CML'92	The CML valuation method of 1992 is probably the most important multi-score valuation method there is in LCA. The method is being updated. Free reports are available as PDF files. The final results of the update (Guide and Backgrounds) are scheduled to be published in the Summer of 2001.	Centre of Environmental Science Leiden (Centruum voor Milieukunde Leiden, CML), Leiden, Netherlands
Eco-indicator 99	Description of the valuation step in an LCA with the Eco-indicator'99 method. Superseded the old Eco-indicator'95 method.	Pré Consultants, Netherlands
Eco-indicator 95 (in German)	German description of the Eco-indicator 95 method. My tip: If you can understand English, read the more accurate original description by Pré	ECODESIGN, Technical University Vienna (TU Wien), Austria
Download Eco-indicator 99 Reports	Download the Manual for Designers, the Methodology and Annex reports for the Eco-indicator 99 method as PDF4.0 file.	Pré Consultants, Netherlands
Normalisation Values for Europe	A document dated July 1997 which gives normalisation values (i.e. current annual magnitudes) of environmental effects (CML classes plus energy use and dumping of solid waste) for the Netherlands around 1993/94 (geographic and cumulated) and for Western Europe 1990-1994 (geographic).	Pré Consultants, Netherlands
Publications by Bo Weidema	Publication list of Bo Pedersen Weidema. Mainly on LCA data format SPLOD and methodology, but also food and biomass LCAs. Mostly dowloadable as PDF files.	2.-0 LCA consultants, Denmark

Product inventory data (input data to an LCA)

Link	Description	Origin
Atmospheric emission factors for Europe(CORINAIR)	Online version of "The Atmospheric Emission Inventory Guidebook" (CORINAIR). Contains detailed information and comparative data from literature on air pollutant emission factors for a wealth processes (industrial and agricultural production, product use, natural sources, transport). Originally meant for national emission reporting in Europe but very handy for average LCA data requirements too! Click on the blue-green "Access to chapters" link to Download PDF files. Some drafts of updated reports can be found at the site of the UNECE task force on emission inventories (TFEI).	European Environment Agency (EEA), European Community (EC), Denmark
U.S. Industry Sector Environmental Reports (EPA industry sector notebook reports)	These very resourceful reports give an overview of the local environmental issues of 29 industry sectors (like eg. electronics, printing, textiles). Includes detailed annual toxics release inventory (TRI) data for the sector. These are good sources to assess at least average emissions and waste from products of a whole industry sector when more specific product data is lacking. Downloadable in a wealth of formats (HTML, Adobe Acrobat, WordPerfect, MSWord, a few spanish versions available).	Office of Compliance, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), USA
UK Emission factors database	A database of yearly emissons and emission factors for major air pollutants (like NOx, SOx, CO, CO2, CH4, NMVOC, benzene, 1,3-butadiene, PM) from industrial and transport activities. Includes point sources (fuel and power industries, metal, mineral, chemical and waste industries), line sources (vehicle, cold starts, rail, shipping, aircraft) and area sources (fuel combustion, waste disposal, coal mines, construction dust, agriculture).	Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions / London Research Centre / RSK Environment, England
Misc. Inventory Data	Various online tables with emission inventories of materials and processes.	Ecosite, England
APME Plastics LCI	Publications regarding life cycle inventories of plastics, including a series of papers with inventory data on thermoplastics production (PE, PP, PVC, PET, PU etc.).	Association of Plastics Manufacturers Europe (APME), Brussels, Belgium

E-mail discussion groups (mail lists, lists, L)

Mail lists..??: These are automated, sometimes moderated discussion groups with a specific topic.
They work like this: First you subscribe to the mail list to become a member of the list, which is usually for free. To subscribe send the subscription message to the subscription address (cf. below). Now you can contribute to the list. All messages that are mailed to the list are automatically distributed among all subscribers (sometimes several hundred people). This is a potentially good way to announce news, help colleagues around the globe with their problems or get your own questions to specific problems answered. In some lists past mailings are archived online. But - as anywhere on the net - there are various signal-to-noise ratios :-)

I found also more general environmental mail lists for professionals. You might want to check out the Environmental Studies Discussion List (ENVST-L), the Environmental Information List (ENVINF-L), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA, on local impacts that is) and INFOTERRA.

Newsletters (Online magazines)

Link	Description	Origin
Ecocycle	Online newsletter on product policy, design, recycling and related topics...	Environment Canada, National Office of Pollution Prevention, Canada
"Green Product Design"-Newsletter	The newsletter of the Environmental Product Development group containing many essays on LCA development	Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
SETAC LCA Newsletter & Publications	Download the SETAC LCA newsletters as PDF files (complete up to Nov 99). Publications regarding the development of LCA. Some downloadable as PDF.	Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), Pensacola, Florida, USA
Environmental Building News	Online version of the "Environmental Building News" (EBN) on environmentally sustainable and healthy design and construction practices.	BuildingGreen, Inc., USA

ISO 14'000 series stuff

Link	Description	Origin
ISO 14000 Series	Download the full ISO 14000 international standards series as PDF files (14040-43 is on LCA). Fairly complete set © ISO (but here as an example of the RegScan document management system, and as such might disappear soon). The acronym 'DIS' indicates draft versions. A list of the various standards can be found at ISO/TC 207.	USA
ISO 14000 InfoCenter	Homepage on the environmental ISO 14000 standards series (14040-43 is on LCA)>/TD>	USA
ISO 140OO standards	Short introduction to the six standards of the environmental ISO 14000 Series, where ISO 14040-43 are concerned with LCA.	Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (SOCMA), USA and Canada
ISO 14000 FAQ	Answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ) about the ISO 14000 series of standards.	American National Standards Institute (ANSI), USA
ISO 14001 Guidance Manual	Download a 1.2 MB PDF-File (for Acrobat Reader 3.0) with explanations and step-by-step guidance to the development and implementation of an Environmental Management System (EMS) according to ISO 14001. By Raymond Martin.	National Center for Environmental Decision-making Research (NCEDR), USA
ISO 14k discussion platform	Belonging to the Global LCA Village discussion forum for LCA, this part focusses on ISO 14042/3 topics. From the home of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.	Ecomed, Germany
ISO 14k certified companies worldwide	Current overview of ISO14001/EMAS registered companies in the world from German and Japanese data sources.	ISOworld, Japan
Swiss ISO 14k certified companies	A site for downloading Excel and PDF files containing a list of Swiss companies certified according to the ISO 14001 standard (in German). Warning: it is dangerous to try to write down this link ;-)	Institut für Wirtschaft und Ökologie (IWÖ), Hochschule St. Gallen (HSG), Switzerland

Misc. articles on LCA, other related texts

Link	Description	Origin
Information on organic and inorganic chemicals	A huge (120k!), searchable list of (at the last count) 576 (!!) organic chemicals (solvents, pesticides etc.) provides not only a wealth of toxicity information, but also their anthropogenic sources and uses. Includes also a total of 1900+ synonyms (!!!) such as commercial names, CAS numbers, and correct chemical nomenclature names (eg. useful if you want to boast a little in your reports by writing out the correct name of active compounds of pesticides ;-) For inorganic compounds the periodical table providing similar information might come in handy. Not exactly an LCA site as such, but this is what I call a philanthropic service (No joke!). Spectrum is a commercial analysis lab. I bow to thee.	Spectrum Laboratories; Ft. Lauderdale, Florida & Savannah, Georgia; USA
Journal of Industrial Ecology	Founded 1997, this journal examines local, regional and global materials and energy uses in products and processes. Sample articles from past issues availabe as PDF files.	MIT press, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA
"LCA - Trends, Methodologies and Current Implementation"	Master's thesis abstract by Tom Gloria (including the history of LCA in the USA)	Tufts University, USA
Eco-Indicator Workshop Proceedings	Proceedings of a 1997 held international workshop "Eco-Indicators for Products and Materials - State of Play" consisting of introductions, examples and discussions of the Eco-Indicator concept; available as Adobe Acrobat files (PDF-Format).	Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa
Articles Global LCA Village	A discussion platform for LCA topics called "Global LCA Village". From the home of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.	Ecomed, Germany
Journal of LCA	Homepage of "The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment". Includes Tables of Contents (title, author, page) for the articles and other information.	Ecomed, Germany
Ecological Footprints Preface	Preface to the book "Our Ecological Footprint". The Ecological Footprint represents the land area necessary to sustain the levels of resource consumption and waste discharge due to the analysed process or lifestyle. It heeds something LCA doesn't: sustainable and egalitarian use of "ecologically productive" resources.	by Wiliam Rees, University of British Colombia, Vancouver, Canada
Current newspaper articles (german)	Read current german newspaper articles containing the keyword "Ökobilanzen". You can type your own keywords, too (in AltaVista syntax).	Paperball, Germany
Industrial Ecology Introduction #1 , #2	Read about Hardin Tibbs and his understanding of industrial processes as an organism with a metabolism (Industrial Ecology) inherently leading to a life-cycle view of manufacture: On closed-loop manufacturing and on technologies of adaptation. Chapters from the 1994 book "Out of Control" by journalist Kevin Kelly (whole book available online).	by Kevin Kelly, well.com, USA
"From LCA to Life Cycle Thinking"	1996 Essay on the environmental challenge for companies.	By Gil Friend, The New Bottom Line, USA
"Only as Good as the Data"	1996 Essay on the reliability of LCAs.	By Gil Friend, The New Bottom Line, USA

Who wrote this page?

• I'm Gabor Doka. Since 1993 I worked on LCAs of photovoltaics, future Swiss electricity production, energy conservation options, heat pumps, residential buildings, waste disposal in incinerators & landfills, modern passenger cars and others.
• I co-worked and co-updated the life cycle inventory of Swiss and European energy systems (ger. Ökoinventare von Energiesystemen) of the former energy-materials-environment group (Energie-Stoffe-Umwelt, ESU) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETHZ).
• I graduated 1991 in chemistry and environmental sciences at the University of Zurich.
• Today, I work as a freelancer in LCA. I'm 36 years old and live in Zurich, Switzerland.

Share with me

The resources on LCA I gathered on the net inspired me to publish this web page (first issue in Dec 1997). I'm hoping that other LCA colleagues would have an easier go at finding useful LCA information that way. Basically I want to display sites that not contain just eg. adresses and 2-paragraph outlines of research programs (what I call online leaflets), but can directly provide tangible information on aspects of an LCA.
Thanks to Michiel Oele (Pré NL), Arthur Braunschweig (E2 Management Consulting, ZŸrich), Bo Weidema (2.-0 LCA consultants, DK) and Hartmut Schneider (W3 Team, TU Vienna) for corrections or motivation.

If you have WWW information about LCA, that should appear here: Please, let me know! Thanks a bunch.

Same if you have specific questions about LCA or comments/criticism regarding this page. My e-mail address is: doka@unite.ch.

Wenn Sie Probleme haben, Englisch zu verstehen, können Sie im Internet fremdsprachigen Text oder auch Web-Seiten gratis übersetzen lassen: bei Babelfish von Altavista! Kopieren Sie dazu den Originaltext in das dortige Eingabefeld oder geben Sie die Internet-Adresse der zu übersetzenden Web-Seite (http://www....) an. Dies funktioniert allerdings nur für einige hundert Wörter pro Auftrag.
Da der Übersetzungsdienst noch einige Kinderkrankheiten aufweist, reicht die Qualität der Übersetzungen allerdings von holperig bis amüsant...

http://www.unite.ch/doka/lca.htm

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