142 Introduction to Renewable Biomaterials
conservatively and wisely with a view to long-term priorities and consequences
ofthewaysinwhichresourcesareused.
UCLA, 2016
5.1.1.1 History
The process of evaluating a product or service with a holistic view of all the life cycle
stages evolved from activities in the mid-1900s with respect to purchasing (Novick,
1959). In that report, not only the cost to purchase weapon systems was considered
in total cost, but other life stages including use, development, and end of life provide
the true cost over the entire lifetime. This kind of life cycle thinking for cost is now
very prevalent. Most people have heard about the “cost of ownership” of automobiles,
which includes purchase price in addition to other costs like fuel, maintenance,
and trade-in value. The principle of life-cycle analysis in the 1970s was a starting
point for life-cycle analysis applied to other issues such as environmental impacts
of products. Dissatisfaction with some of the early LCA studies included ambiguous
methods and results that had questionable motivations. LCAs performed with poor
methods and hidden motivations unfortunately discredited LCAs for some time.
The issues surrounding methods and motivations needed to be addressed to enable
creditable studies to inform product designers and decisions makers. This motivated
the standardization of LCA methods using a predefined framework and detailed
methodological guidance. The International Organization of Standards created two
guidance documents for performing LCAs that are defined in standards ISO 14040
(2006) and ISO 14044 (2006). More recently, an additional ISO method was developed
to provide guidance on accounting for water use and consumption in LCAs – ISO
14046 (2014).
Triple Bottom Line Triple bottom line refers to the evaluation of environmental, eco-
nomic, and social considerations for a product or service (Figure 5.1). Product or
service need to consider and address all three pillars of sustainability to be considered
sustainable from the perspective of triple bottom line. Environmental LCA contributes
to the triple bottom line reporting by quantifying the ecological and human health
performance of competing products and services. Of the three measures, the economic
evaluation is the most certain and objective. Environmental and health LCA analyses
are often less certain and less objective, with the social analysis the most difficult to
produce objective, clear, and certain results.
5.1.2 LCA for Decision Making
As stated earlier, the purpose of environmental LCAs is to quantify the inputs and out-
puts to the environment resulting from a product or service and how these flows impact
the environment. This information is used to support decisions made by consumers,
industry, and policy makers that will hopefully result in reduced environmental
impacts. Everyone makes these decisions, ranging from the leaders of government,
to businesses, to individual consumers. In particular, the impact of an LCA can be
immense when used by entities that have great influence on products or service
provided. These significant influencers can include business product managers and
planners, company procurement and purchasing agents, industrial sector consortia,
