Life Cycle Assessment Practitioner Survey
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Cooper, J.S., J. Fava "Life Cycle Assessment Practitioner
Survey: Summary of Results," Journal of Industrial Ecology (2006)
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Cooper, J.S., J. Fava "The Life Cycle Assessment
Practitioners Survey: Assessment Methods for Evolutionary and
Revolutionary Electronic Products," Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE
International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment (2006)
Over the past several years, significant progress has been
made in building Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) capacity throughout the world.
Some of this progress is described and discussed in the column "LCA in North
America" published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. Topics have
included teaching LCA at Universities (Volume 3 Issue 2/3 and Volume 4 Issue
4), the UNEP/SETAC Life-Cycle Initiative (Volume 5 Issue 4), LCA and
sustainable development indicators (Volume 7 Issue 1), and most recently an
Update on Capacity Building (Volume 8 Issue 3).
In this survey, we were interested in learning more about
who is using LCA, how LCA is being used, what barriers exist to increased
and improved use of LCA, and how to overcome those barriers. The survey
questions and results follow.
Survey Questions
1. What sector is your organization in? (Academia;
Accommodation and food services; Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and
hunting; Arts, entertainment, and recreation; Building and construction;
Educational services; Finance and insurance; Government - multi lateral;
Government - national; Government - regional; Health care and social
assistance; Information; Legal services; Management of companies and
enterprises; Manufacturing - Automotive and other transport; Manufacturing -
Chemicals and plastics; Manufacturing - Electronic and electric equipment;
Manufacturing - Other; Metals and mining; Non government organization (NGO);
Other; Professional, scientific and technical services/ Consulting; Public
administration; Real estate, rental, and leasing; Retail trade;
Transportation and warehousing; Utilities; Waste management and remediation;
or Wholesale trade)
2. What is your primary role in your organization?
(Business management; College or university education and research;
Environmental, Health, and Safety Management; K-12 education; Marketing and
sales; Other; Product and process design/ product steward; Professional
education; Public policy; Purchasing; or Research and development)
3. What is your involvement in LCA? (select any of
the following options that apply- Assessment; Data collection; Data
dissemination; Decision-making using LCA results; Investment; Marketing /
Developing environmental product declarations; Project/ Research funding;
Tool development; Other involvement (identify))
4. How are your LCA results used? (select any of
the following options that apply- As input into product or process design;
In business strategy; In education; In policy development; In procurement;
In research and development; In sales; Labeling / Product declarations;
Other (identify))
5. How many LCA studies have you conducted or
contributed to in the following categories: Streamlined LCAs; Economic
input-output LCAs or Hybrid economic input-output LCAs; LCAs following
ISO14040 for use inside a company; LCAs following ISO14040 for use outside a
company
6. Concerning peer review:
a. How many LCA studies have you conducted or
contributed to in the following categories: No peer review; Internal
company peer review; Third party, single person, external peer review;
Third party, panel, external peer review
b. Were the majority of these peer reviews completed:
At the end of the project; At the begining and end of the project;
Interactively; Not Applicable
7. Concerning number of LCAs: How many LCA studies
have you done? How many LCA studies have been done in your organization?
8. Describe environmental and/or business benefits that
have resulted from your applications of LCA?
9. What type of products have been the subject of your
LCAs?
10. What type of computing system do you use?
(select any of the following options that apply- Off-the-shelf LCA software
(identify); Spreadsheet programs such as MSExcel; Math packages such as
Matlab, Mathematica, or Maple; Models developed by others in programs such
as C, Java, or Fortran; Models developed by you in programs such as C, Java,
or Fortran Other computing systems (identify))
11. What percentage of the inventory data you use is:
collected from industry collected from LCI databases costing greater
than $10,000; collected from LCI databases costing less than $10,000;
collected from literature or databases not developed for LCA; modeled based
on science and engineering principles
12. What impact assessment methods/tools do you use and
why?
13. Do you think there should be a standard impact
assessment method and why?
14. How do you capture uncertainty in your data and
models?
15. What do you include in your interpretation of your
LCA results?
16. What is the most time consuming part of LCA?
(Goal and scope definition; Inventory data collection; Inventory data
analysis; Impact data collection; Impact assessment; or Interpretation)
17. What is the most costly part of LCA? (Goal and
scope definition; Inventory data collection; Inventory data analysis; Impact
data collection; Impact assessment; or Interpretation)
18. What have the benefits of LCA been to your
organization?
19. Why is LCA not applied to more products &
processes?
20. Why is LCA not used by more members of your
organization?
21. What suggestions do you have to overcome
constraints or increase benefits?
Survey Results
The survey results are discussed in the archival articles
listed above and are available
here.
For
more information, contact Associate Professor Joyce Smith Cooper at
cooper@me.washington.edu
