Life Cycle Impact Assessment – a study of the EPS
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master Thesis
Master Thesis
Program
Publicerad
2012
Författare
Mattsson, Jenny
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Industry in today’s society is becoming more and more aware of the importance of having a good environmental work. As part of this work is usually a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) performed on a company’s products. SCA (Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget) has used LCA for environmental evaluation of their hygiene products since the early nineties. Performing LCA’s supports SCA in identifying the areas of a product’s life cycle that could potentially be improved. There are several different Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods; currently SCA uses the impact categories of CML2002 methodology. The company has an interest of evaluating a LCIA method that provides a weighted value. Therefore is the Environmental Priority Strategies (EPS) method described in this master thesis report. Further were the EPS method implemented in a software program and used to perform results on SCA products. The result, by using the EPS method and the impact categories from the CML2000 methodology, were presented and discussed. The conclusions from the result were that the EPS method should be used communicating the one weighted value presented in Environmental Load Unit (ELU). The benefits with using the CML2000 impact categories used at SCA today, is that it is a known concept, which makes it easier to communicate since more people know how they are interpreted. This is one of the largest differences by using the EPS method and CML2000 impact categories. Therefore, I recommend both approaches as they present the results in different way. Thus, one cannot get the same kind of information from the impact categories that SCA currently use and the EPSmethod since EPS measures further out in the cause-effect chain. With EPS, all the results from the impact categories are weighted to one single score. This value is quite easy to communicate and can be used in an early product development process, for example quickly see how different materials effect the outcome. It is also very convenient to have a method that presents one weighted value, which can be used to see if the product has improved or deteriorated its environmental performance or compared with another product. Keywords: Environmental Priority Strategies (EPS), Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA), SCA
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Miljöbioteknik , Energi , Annan teknik , Environmental Biotechnology , Energy , Other Engineering and Technologies