Errors in Decision Making, Using Ecobalance—LCA (Life Cycle Assessment)

Abstract

The world began to talk about the life cycle of a product in the 1960s. One of the first, who published his work on this subject, was Harold Smith. He calculated the cumulative energy consumption for production of chemical products. From 1997 till 2002 were created the standards in International Standards Organization (ISO) 14000 based on the LCA methodology. Since then, the ecobalance (LCA) has become an indispensable tool for decision-making in favor of environmental protection for all areas of human activities. However, due to the methodology is complex, often happens, that a deeper look reveals that the assessment was performed incorrectly. The methodology requires a definition of a goal and, in accordance with it, a delineation of boundaries for the assessment. Often this boundaries leads to the choice incorrect source data, then to a wrong decision and, as a result, to a more negative impact on the environment. This paper provides examples of ecobalance assessments, where were made wrong decisions. The article considers reasons for this phenomenon and suggests options to avoid such cases.