Development of life cycle assessment method

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) can be used to systematically quantify and optimize industrial activities’material flow, energy flow, and environmental impacts. This method has become an internationally recognized tool for environmental management, sustainable development assessment, and ecological design. However, due to imperfect life cycle inventory databases and life cycle impact assessment models, current Chinese LCA researches faces several issues, such as narrow applications, low traceability, conflicting conclusions, and difficulty in controlling source reduction. To solve these problems, this study pointed out that the process-based and rapid life cycle inventory construction method could contribute to conducting LCA research at the micro, meso, and macro levels. Further promotion of the construction of a unified, complete, dynamic, regional, and sharable life cycle inventory database with high data quality is necessary. The selection and revision of the life cycle impact assessment model is imperative to conduct highly scientific and accurate LCA research. Furthermore, the life cycle impact assessment model with spatial and temporal attributes should be improved. On the basis of the review and analysis of the current situation of the research on LCA method in China, this study projected the future directions of Chinese LCA research.