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LCIA Recommended Indicators

Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA)

Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) translates resource use and emissions into potential environmental impacts. In doing so, it extends a Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) to consider the likely effects that a product or service may have on the natural environment.

The table below provides a summary of LCIA indicators that should be considered for LCA studies conducted in New Zealand. The first seven indicators are those specified by European standard EN 15804 and are widely used in LCA and EPD studies worldwide. They can be used as a default core set of indicators, particularly within the construction industry. However, the choice of indicators for a specific study should always be defined as part of its goal and scope phase.

While there is no maximum number of indicators that can be considered within a single study, it is important to consider a minimum of two (and preferably more) in order to minimise the potential for burden-shifting. If multiple indicators are used, LCANZ recommends that normalisation be applied and presented alongside the un-normalised results. Doing so will help the reader to understand the likely relevance of each indicator.

Only midpoint indicators are included within the table. While endpoint indicators (e.g. human health impacts) are easier to apply in decision-making, they calculate potential impacts further down the cause-and-effect chain and are typically more uncertain and/or subjective. Where endpoint indicators are used in an LCA study, LCANZ recommends that both the midpoint and endpoint results be presented together.

It is important to recognise that all indicators represent potential environmental impacts. While they provide information on drivers of downstream changes, what actually occurs within the environment depend on a range of local, regional and global factors.

The table below primarily presents LCIA methods that are quite far up the cause-and-effect chain. LCA studies focused on local impacts should select different LCIA methods with local characterisation factors (wherever these are available). The table is also available in a PDF, at the top of this page.

Each indicator is presented using a common unit (e.g. kg CO2 equivalent for global warming potential). This does not mean that only this flow is considered, but rather that all other relevant flows have been normalised to a single unit in order to understand likely environmental effects.

Summary of suggested LCIA-based midpoint indicators and calculation methods

* The methods given provide a placeholder until an information sheet is provided to confirm the method

Methodology section

* The methods given provide a placeholder until an information sheet is provided to confirm the method

References

CML-IA is a database that contains characterisation factors for life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/research/research-output/science/cml-ia-characterisation-factors

The database contains the characterisation factors for all baseline characterisation methods mentioned in the Handbook on LCA, Guinée, J.B., Gorrée, M., Heijungs, R., Huppes, G., Kleij,n R., van Oers, L., Wegener Sleeswijk, A., Suh, S., Udo de Haes, H.A., de Bruijn, H., van Duin, R. & Huijbregts, M.A.J. (2002). Life Cycle Assessment: An operational guide to the ISO standards, Volume 1, 2 and 3. Centre of Environmental Science Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Justifications

1 Required under EN 15804 but, almost all ozone depleting substances of relevance have been banned under the Montreal Protocol for many years and are completely phased out.

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