Toolbox: Life cycle based assessments
A life cycle based assessment toolbox is being developed to support the assessment of sustainability of chemicals. It is based on existing models already used in life cycle assessment (LCA) to assess the toxicity and ecotoxicity of chemicals, while taking into account advances in digitalization methods.
Substituting hazardous chemicals in industrial processes and consumer products requires not only the selection of less hazardous alternatives, but also ensuring that the substitution does not lead to unacceptable trade-offs elsewhere in the chemical or product life cycle. Similarly, applying a systems perspective to process design and optimization is essential to avoid shifting the burden from one potential health and environmental impact to another.
Robust methods and tools are needed to address these challenges. Life cycle based tools need to take into account the hazardous properties of chemicals and materials as well as the risks of exposure throughout the life cycle.
The sustainability part of the toolbox is divided into three main parts: Life cycle assessment, Chemical footprint assessment and Life cycle based alternatives assessment. Click the plus signs below to unfold the descriptions and learn more about the tools included in each part.
Life cycle assessment (LCA)
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used to understand hot spot patterns for further optimization and to compare new solutions with conventional ones (see e.g. ISO standards 140 40 and 140 44). The LCAs can be broad in scope and include many impact categories.
Life cycle assessment represents an important foundation of the sustainability part of the Mistra SafeChem toolbox. It is a well-established tool and not developed under the programme. Instead LCA has been applied in several case studies during phase I of the programme to illustrate the use of the life cycle based tools. Please visit the page Case studies to learn more.
For further guidance to the use of the toolbox for life cycle based assessment, see the report Towards safe and sustainable chemistry – Guidance to the use of the Mistra SafeChem toolbox for life cycle based assessments. pdf, 3.8 MB, opens in new window.
Chemical footprint assessment (CFA)
In Mistra SafeChem, the chemical footprint is defined as “an aggregated indicator of chemical pollution that enables the assessment of the potential human toxicity and ecotoxicity impacts of the entire life cycle of a product or service”. The footprint is assessed for a function that could be generated by a product or service. This is analogous to the terms ecological footprint, carbon footprint or water footprint (see e.g. Towards a common conceptual framework for chemical footprint bridging Risk Assessment and Life Cycle Assessment: Short review and way forward External link, opens in new window.). Relevant protection areas when conducting a Chemical footprint assessment (CFA) are human health and ecosystem quality.
A CFA is the combination of a life cycle inventory (LCI) and a life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). The tools described below contribute to the completeness of both LCI and LCIA for CFA. The focus is on the further development of USEtox and ProScale, two LCIA tools for calculating human toxicity and ecotoxicity indicators in LCA.
Life cycle based alternatives assessment (LCAA)
The aim of informed substitution is to reduce or eliminate chemical hazards and associated risks by replacing a chemical of concern with an alternative solution that has a better safety and sustainability profile than the chemical being phased out. A functional approach allows the identification of alternatives beyond the one-to-one substitution of one chemical for another. A life cycle approach allows the identification of trade-offs.
A life cycle assessment (LCAA) framework is presented here as a tool for informed substitution. In this tool description, the LCAA framework is based on USEtox 3. Complementary use of other LCIA tools is envisaged and will be described on the page Case studies Opens in new window..