A LCIA model considering pollution transfer phenomena

Abstract

Due to market pressure and government regulations, environmental consciousness in manufacturing is becoming increasingly important. Currently, the global environmental impact (EI) of a product is a crucial criterion to judge its environmental performance. Many models were proposed in the last three decades to evaluate the global EI of products, but none of them considers the pollution transfer phenomena (PTP) of product’s material flow. PTP refers to the EIs propagate from one phase to another one caused by different processes on the product’s materials in different phases. PTP may have a consequence of EIs reduce in one phase but increase in other phases. The outcome will severely influence on the global EI of a product. Based on a PCB (printed circuit board) product case study, this paper proposes a new simplified life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) model which can help enterprises evaluate the global EI of product by considering the PTP in the whole product life cycle (PLC).