University of Washington

Design for Environment Lab

Directed by Emeritus Professor Joyce Cooper (cooperjs@uw.edu) 

ME515 Life Cycle Assessment

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a structured research method to evaluate the impacts of a product, process, or service through all stages of its life cycle (i.e., from materials extraction through manufacturing, use, and retirement). “Impacts” relate to the environment, economics/ business, and society.

Instructor: Professor Joyce Cooper,  cooperjs@uw.edu

Textbook: Heijungs, R., S. Suh (2002) The Computational Structure of Life Cycle Assessment, Kluwar Academic Publishers: Dordrecht, The Netherlands

Class format Students individually prepare an LCA starting with a project proposal identifying their topic of interest.  Project documentation is submitted throughout the quarter as a goal and scope document, an inventory analysis, and a final report including impact assessment and interpretation.

Topics covered

Week 1: Course introduction

Week 2: Goal and scope definition

Week 3: The basic model for inventory analysis

Week 4: Inventory data sources

Week 5: The refined model for inventory analysis

Week 6: Inventory working sessions

Week 7: Impact Assessment

Week 8: Interpretation

Week 9: LCA tools, issues and status

Week 10: Student project presentations


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