Table Of ContentPERSPECTIVES IN LIFE CYCLE
IMPACT ASSESSMENT
A Structured Approach to Combine Models of the
Technosphere, Ecosphere and Valuesphere
PERSPECTIVES IN LIFE CYCLE
IMPACT ASSESSMENT
A Structured Approach to Combine Models of the
Technosphere, Ecosphere and Valuesphere
by
Patrick Hofstetter
Swiss Federal Institute ofTechnology, Zurich
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SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hofstetter, Patrick, 1965-
Perspectives in life cycle impact assessment : a structured
approach to combine models of the technosphere, ecosphere, and
valuesphere / by Patrick Hofstetter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4613-7333-9 ISBN 978-1-4615-5127-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4615-5127-0
1. Environmental risk assessment. 2. Life cycle, Human
-Environmental aspects. 3. Environmental engineering. 1. Title.
GE145.H45 1998
333.7'14--dc21 98-46060
CIP
Copyright © 1998 by Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1998
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover Ist edition 1998
AlI rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, photo
copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the
publisher, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
Printed on acid-free paper.
OVERVIEW OF CONTENT
LIST OF CONTENT VII
LIST OF ACRONYMS, SYMBOLS AND INDICES XIII
PREFACE XV
ABSTRACT XVII
1 INTRODUCTION TO LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT AND ITS POSITIONING 1
2 SHIFT OF PARADIGM - PROPOSITIONS - OBJECTIVES 31
3 MODELLING THE V ALUESPHERE BY CULTURAL THEORY 41
4 MODELLING THE ECOSPHERE BY THE
STRUCTURED AGGREGATION PROCEDURE 81
5 DALYS - AN INDEX FOR HUMAN HEALTH ASSESSMENT 155
6 DAMAGE TO HUMAN HEALTH FROM ENVIRONMENTAL
CHEMICALS THAT CAUSE CANCER 195
7 DAMAGE TO HUMAN HEALTH FROM RESPIRATORY EFFECTS 289
8 PERFECTION OF THE FRAMEWORK 359
9 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 375
10 CONCLUSIONS 397
APPENDICES 409
REFERENCES 447
SUBJECT INDEX 481
LIST OF CONTENT
LIST OF ACRONYMS, SYMBOLS AND INDICES XIII
PREFACE XV
ABSTRACT XVII
1 INTRODUCTION TO LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT AND ITS POSITIONING 1
1.1 Reader's guide 2
1.2 LCA - a short introduction 5
1.2.1 The place of LCA 5
1.2.2 Basic principles of LCA and attempts towards its
epistemological foundation 6
1.2.3 The structure of LCA 8
1.2.4 Typical applications 10
1.2.5 There is more than one type of LCA 11
1.2.6 "Our" LCA sensu stricto 12
1.3 Overview of methods for Life Cycle Impact Assessment 14
1.3.1 A typology for weighting methods 14
1.3.2 Approaches using proxy indicator 15
1.3.3 Characteristics of abatement technology and of the
market mechanism 16
1.3.4 Panel-oriented approaches 17
1.3.5 Authoritative goals and targets 18
1.3.6 Outlook 18
1.4 Positioning of LCA 20
1.4.1 Decision support or decision making? 20
1.4.2 The level of analysis 22
1.4.3 LCA measures pressure 24
1.4.4 Time and space 24
1.4.5 Summary 26
1.5 Life Cycle Impact Assessment revisited by decision theory 28
2 SHIFT OF PARADIGM - PROPOSITIONS - OBJECTIVES 31
2.1 LCA - the art to combine three spheres 32
2.1.1 The limits of the bottom-up approach 32
2.1.2 Paradigm shift -three spheres and their combination 33
2.1.3 Top-down modelling 34
2.1.4 Safeguard subjects in LCA 35
2.1.5 First consequences 37
2.2 Proposition 38
2.3 Objectives and the book's contribution 40
viii PERSPECTIVES IN LIFE CYCLE IMPACT ASSESSMENT
3 MODELLING THE VALUESPHERE BY CULTURAL THEORY 41
3.1 Introduction 41
3.1.1 Problem setting 41
3.1.2 Whose valuesphere? 42
3.1.3 Do value judgements alter the perceived relevance of
environmental problems? 44
3.1.4 The different levels from behaviour to culture 45
3.2 Cultural Theory - an overview 49
3.2.1 Introduction to Cultural Theory 49
3.2.2 The many predictions by Cultural Theory 52
3.2.3 Will all the predictions be fulfilled? Surprise and change 57
3.2.4 Empirical validation of Cultural Theory 60
3.2.5 The distribution of ways of life in European countries 62
3.2.6 Criticism towards and open questions in Cultural Theory 63
3.2.7 Summary 65
3.3 Cultural Theory in relation to other typologies 67
3.3.1 Thompson et al. (1990) and the masters 67
3.3.2 Typologies which make reference to nature or environmental
characteristics 68
3.3.3 Typologies with interesting analogies to Cultural Theory 70
3.3.4 Further typologies 72
3.3.5 Exclusivity versus transfonnability of Cultural Theory 73
3.4 Cultural Theory in LCA 74
3.4.1 The intended use of Cultural Theory in LCA 74
3.4.2 Are all archetypes relevant for LCA? 76
3.4.3 Interest groups and their cultural bias 76
3.4.4 Cultural bias of LCA 78
3.5 Final remarks 79
4 MODELLING THE ECOSPHERE BY THE STRUCTURED AGGREGATION
PROCEDURE 81
4.1 Damage assessment and damage attributes 81
4.1.1 Environmental problems as a starting point 81
4.1.2 Analysis at the level of safeguard subject 84
4.1.3 Safeguard subject revisited by Cultural Theory 88
4.1.4 Uni-directional view of the ecosphere in LCA 89
4.1.5 Damage attributes and the precautionary principle 89
4.2 The model framework: Damage, unknown damage, and manageability 94
4.3 Damage assessment by Impact - Pathway - Analysis 97
4.3.1 Introduction 97
4.3.2 The safeguard subjects as a prerequisite for the
damage assessment 98
4.3.3 From damages to causes - an illustration 99
4.3.4 The general set-up of the impact pathway analysis 101
4.3.5 The cases of non-proportional damage function 103
LIST OF CONTENT ix
a) The shape of the functions 103
b) Place and time - the neglected children in LCA 104
c) What to do if background concentrations and doses matter 106
d) On/off mechanisms and LCIA 107
4.3.6 The case studies chosen 108
a) The reasons leading to the selection 108
b) Chemical carcinogenity caused by environmental pollutants 109
c) Respiratory effects 110
4.3.7 The role of cultural perspectives 111
4.3.8 Final remarks 112
4.4 Proxy for unknown damage 113
4.4.1 Overview 113
4.4.2 Discussion to clarify the meaning of unknown damage 113
4.4.3 The role of cultural perspectives 116
4.4.4 Operationalising unknown damage 118
4.4.5 Summary and concluding remarks 130
4.5 Index for manageability 133
4.5.1 The relevance of manageability 133
4.5.2 The role of cultural perspective 134
4.5.3 Operationalising indicators for manageability 135
4.5.4 Composition of the indicators to an index 143
4.5.5 Summary and concluding remarks 144
4.6 The structured aggregation procedure 146
4.6.1 The outcome of the three submodels 146
4.6.2 A proposal for the composition of the spheres and their indices 147
4.6.3 The submodels revisited by Cultural Theory 151
4.7 Concluding remarks 154
5 DALYS - AN INDEX FOR HUMAN HEALTH ASSESSMENT 155
5.1 Overview 155
5.2 Some facts and figures about human health 156
5.2.1 Health statistics 156
5.2.2 Environmental risk factors 159
5.3 Indices to measure human health 163
5.3.1 What is human health 163
5.3.2 Requirements for a human health index 163
5.3.3 Existing approaches 164
5.3.4 Economic accounting 168
5.4 TheDALYsconcept 172
5.4.1 Objectives, normative background and basic assumptions 172
5.4.2 Life expectation and standard life tables 175
5.4.3 Weighting different health states and premature death 176
5.4.4 Time preference and discounting 180
5.4.5 Should there be age-weighting 182
5.4.6 The original concept ofDALYs 184
x PERSPECTIVES IN LIFE CYCLE IMPACf ASSESSMENT
5.4.7 DALY s revisited by Cultural Theory 188
5.4.8 Compliance with requirements and uncertainty 191
5.4.9 Summary 192
5.4.10 Critical reflection 192
6 DAMAGE TO HUMAN HEALTH FROM ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMICALS
THAT CAUSE CANCER 195
6.1 Introduction 195
6.1.1 Mechanisms of chemical carcinogenesis 195
6.1.2 Selecting pathways for analysis 197
6.1.3 Overview of the calculation of the damage factors 200
6.1.4 Manageability of human carcinogenesis 201
6.2 Fate analysis 202
6.2.1 Introduction 202
6.2.2 Introduction to multimedia fate modelling 204
6.2.3 Multimedia fate analysis of carcinogenic substances 211
6.2.4 Simplified dispersion modelling in the atmosphere 219
6.2.5 Combination of the models for fate analysis 224
6.2.6 The results of fate modelling 227
6.3 Effect analysis 233
6.3.1 Overview 233
6.3.2 Human carcinogens and the certainty of effects 233
6.3.3 The unit-risk concept for the estimation of the
dose-response relationship 237
6.3.4 The compilation of the unit risk factors 240
6.3.5 Population density and estimates for cancer incidence 242
6.3.6 Uncertainty estimate 245
6.4 Life of Years Lost (YLL) and Years Lived Disabled (YLD) 249
6.4.1 Overview 249
6.4.2 Which cancer types have to be expected? 249
6.4.3 Survival rate and Years Life Lost 250
6.4.4 Disability weights and Years Lived Disabled 253
6.4.5 Results and uncertainty 254
6.5 Results for the complete damage functions 257
6.5.1 Overview 257
6.5.2 The mathematical construction of the damage function 257
6.5.3 The best estimates of the damage factors 259
6.5.4 Cumulated error ranges for the estimates 262
6.5.5 Comparison with other cancer risk estimates 266
6.6 Index for Manageability of Cancer 275
6.6.1 Recalling the preliminary proposal 275
6.6.2 Determination of the index of manageability for
chemical carcinogenesis 276
6.6.3 Discussion 280
6.7 Remaining aspects, the main assumptions, and conclusions 282
LIST OF CONTENT xi
7 DAMAGE TO HUMAN HEALTH FROM RESPIRATORY EFFECTS 289
7.1 Introduction 289
7.1.1 Respiratory diseases - evidence, endpoints and thresholds 289
7.1.2 The dilemma of causality 292
7.1.3 Overview on the calculation of the damage factors 294
7.1.4 Manageability of respiratory diseases 296
7.2 Fate analysis 297
7.2.1 Introduction 297
7.2.2 Calculating fate factors for particles from residence times 297
7.2.3 Statistical methods with empirical and modelled data 302
7.2.4 Best estimate for the fate factors 310
7.2.5 The umbrella principle for individual VOCs 311
7.2.6 Summary 313
7.3 Effect analysis 314
7.3.1 Introduction 314
7.3.2 Epidemiological studies and their basic assumptions 314
7.3.3 The dose-response relationships for respiratory effects 316
7.3.4 Evidence of causality in the light of Cultural Theory 324
7.3.5 Emission-response relationships for respiratory
effects due to air pollutants 327
7.3.6 Summary 328
7.4 Years of Life Lost (YLL) and Years Lived Disabled 329
7.4.1 Introduction 329
7.4.2 Disability weights and Years Lived Disabled 329
7.4.3 Years of Life Lost 332
7.4.4 Results and uncertainty 333
7.5 Results for the full damage functions 336
7.5.1 Introduction 336
7.5.2 The mathematical construction of the damage function 336
7.5.3 The damage factors 337
7.5.4 Comparison with other respiratory risk estimates 340
7.6 Index for manageability 349
7.6.1 Recalling the preliminary proposal 349
7.6.2 Determination of the index of manageability for
respiratory effects 349
7.6.3 Discussion 353
7.7 Main assumptions and conclusions 354
8 PERFECTION OF THE FRAMEWORK 359
8.1 Graphical dominance analysis 359
8.1.1 Four indices as the starting basis 359
8.1.2 The "mixing triangle" or "mixing tetrahedron" 360
8.1.3 Lines of indifference 362
8.1.4 Areas with the same dominance order 363
8.1.5 Preferred sets of weighting triples 364
xii PERSPECTIVES IN LIFE CYCLE IMPACf ASSESSMENT
8.1.6 Final remarks 366
8.2 Compatible value choices reduce the uncertainty in LCA 367
8.2.1 The different types of uncertainty 367
8.2.2 Cultural perspective within uncertainty assessment 368
8.2.3 Is the uncertainty really reduced? 370
8.2.4 Cultural dependence ofthe ranking 370
8.3 The framework as meta-method 372
9 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 375
9.1 The structured aggregation procedure 375
9.2 Results from the case studies 377
9.2.1 Known damage 377
9.2.2 Index for manageability 384
9.2.3 Final remarks 385
9.3 Evaluation of the framework 387
9.3.1 Evaluation criteria 387
9.3.2 Application of the criteria 387
9.3.3 Appraisal 388
9.4 Validation and empirical work 389
9.4.1 What is the status of the framework and its models? 389
9.4.2 Problems of validation 390
9.4.3 Replacing the model of the valuesphere with the
decision makers' world views 391
9.4.4 Legitimation and scientific character 392
9.5 Dependent or not? - Consequences 393
10 CONCLUSIONS 397
10.1 The perspectives 397
10.2 Propositions 399
10.3 What is new? 402
10.4 Problems solved? 404
10.5 Outlook 406
ApPENDICES 409
Appendix Chapter 4: Derivation of Composition Rules 411
Appendices Chapter 6 416
Appendices Chapter 7 436
Appendices Chapter 9 444
REFERENCES 447
SUBJECT INDEX 481
