Here you will find a short explanation of important terms and abbreviations.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Please select the initial letter of the searched term to activate it in the glossary.
A
| Acidification Potential AP |
Acidification potential is the result of aggregating acid, expressed in SO2 equivalents. The AP is an important environmental indicator. Acidification potential translates the quantity of emission of substances into a common measure to compare their contributions to the capacity to release hydrogen ions. Acidification originates from the emissions of sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen. In the atmosphere, these oxides react with water vapour and form acids which subsequently fall down to earth in the form of rain or snow, or as dry depositions. |
| Allocation | An established process for dividing the input and output flows of a process that has more than one product among the individual products. Allocation is needed in multiple products systems, so that it is possible to perform Life Cycle Assessments for individual products. Allocation is the distribution of (environmental) burdens of processes to several outputs (products) of these processes. The allocation can be carried out based on, for example, heat values, mass or costs, or by crediting. Allocation is an important method for generating meaningful statements from a process chain analysis for individual products. |
| Ancillary input | Material input that is used by the unit process producing the product, but does not constitute a part of the product. |
| Anthropogenic effects | Effects on the environment caused by humans. |
| AP | see Acidification Potential |
| AUB | Arbeitsgemeinschaft Umweltverträgliches Bauprodukt, consortium of building product manufacturers who want to declare the environmental standing of their products, in particular with regard to their conformity to ISO standards. |
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B
| Benchmarking | The term benchmarking refers to the comparison of results and work processes of a company, department or office with other businesses, departments or offices. Improvements, optimisations and saving potentials are often determined using benchmarking analyses. |
| Biochemical oxygen demand BOD |
The amount of oxygen used for biochemical oxidation by a unit volume of water at a given temperature and for a given time. BOD is an index of the degree of organic pollution in water. |
| Biofuels | Fuels made from plant material, e.g. wood, straw and ethanol from plant matter. |
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C
| Carbon Dioxide Equivalent | A metric measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse gases based upon their global warming potential (GWP). Carbon dioxide equivalents are commonly expressed as 'million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (MMTCDE)'. The carbon dioxide equivalent of a gas is derived by multiplying the tonnes of the gas by the associated GWP. For example, the GWP for methane is 21 and for nitrous oxide 310. This means that emissions of 1 million metric tonnes of methane and of nitrous oxide are equivalent to emissions of 21 and 310 million metric tonne of carbon dioxide, respectively. |
| CEN | European Committee for Standardisation, similar to ISO (international) and DIN (national) |
| Characterization | Second element within impact assessment succeeding the classification element and preceding valuation, in which analysis/quantification, and aggregation of the impacts within the chosen impact categories takes place. It is the process by which the significance of a product's environmental burdens are quantified |
| Chemical Oxygen Demand COD |
The quantity of oxygen used in biological and non-biological oxidation of materials in water; a measure of water quality. |
| Classification | First element within impact assessment, which attributes the environmental interventions, listed in the inventory table, to a number of selected impact categories. The process by which environmental burdens are grouped into impact categories such as acidification and global warming. |
| Closed-loop Recycling | Operation of reforming reclaimed materials into either raw materials or new products by changing their form (e.g. recycled paper). |
| Closed-loop Reuse | To use a product repeatedly in the same form, but within a different life cycle of the same application (e.g.: glass bottles, cloth diapers). |
| Comparative assertion |
Environmental claim regarding the superiority or equivalence of one product versus a competing product which performs the same function. |
| Coproduct | Any of two or more products from the same unit process. |
| Cost-benefit analysis | An economic analysis of schemes for decision-making. The projects chosen should be those that fulfil the aim most effectively. |
| Cradle to Grave | A method of describing the environmental burdens of a product, process or activity on the basis of an inventory of environmental factors from the extraction of raw materials until their final disposal. Environmental factors include the consumption of raw materials and energy and emissions to air and water and solid waste generation. |
| Critical Review | Particularly necessary in Life Cycle Assessments with comparative statements, e.g. product comparisons. Has to be performed by independent internal or external experts. |
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D
| Data quality | Characteristic of data that bears on their ability to satisfy stated requirements. |
| Design for Environment DfE |
Design for the environment (eco-design) examines a product's life cycle and proposes design changes that reduce its lifetime environmental impact. Life cycle aspects directly influence the product design. The focus is on result-orientated support from the product developer in the areas of product design, choice of material and processes as well as product recycling and legal considerations. |
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E
| Eco design | See Design for Environment |
| Eco-Efficiency | The proportion of environmental impacts relative to costs along the life cycle of a product.Often defined as the amount of environmental impact reduced per unit cost. The more environmental impact can be reduced at a low cost to the environment, the greater the eco-efficiency becomes. Eco-Efficiency simply means 'doing more with less'. Eco-efficiency is not the same as sustainability as it incorporates only the environmental and economic aspects of sustainability, not the social aspect. Cleaner production, however, can be a part of eco-efficiency. The aim is obviously to produce the greatest possible environmental performance per unit cost. |
| Eco-Indicator 95 | Impact assessment method from the Netherlands. The so-called Distance-to-Target principle is used to determine the factors. The underlying premise is that there is a correlation between the severeness of an effect and the difference between the current level and the target level. Thus if a certain impact on the environment has to be reduced by 20% in the future and another by 10%, then the first is regarded as being twice as severe. |
| Eco-Indicator 99 | Developed in the Netherlands for designers and product managers. Pollutants are allocated to impact categories (mid-points) and are normalized by means of division through the national total impact potentials. The environmental effects are then assigned to 'damage categories' (end-points) which include the effects on human health, the quality of an ecosystem and the fossil and mineral resources. |
| Eco-labels | Labels that identify a preference for a product or service, within a specific product/service category, based on the environmental impact of the product or service throughout its life. In contrast to 'green' symbols or claim statements developed by manufacturers and service providers, an eco-label is awarded to specific products or services by an impartial third party based on defined environmental leadership criteria. One example is the EU Eco-label 'Flower?. |
| Ecological Scarcity Method | A method of impact assessment. This method assumes that nature can cope with a certain amount of environmental burden and can repair itself to a certain extent. Appropriate threshold values for resilience in Switzerland have been calculated based on legislative environmental regulations. |
| Eco-Management and Audit Scheme EMAS |
EMAS is a regulated system for environmental management and auditing, specified in the EC eco management and audit scheme regulation. Organizations may apply for registration under the scheme if they meet the requirements of a detailed environmental management system. This includes the production of an environmental policy, various requirements to investigate the environmental impacts associated with the organization, the institution of systems and procedures to control the identified impacts, and publicity of the impacts and the actions being taken. |
| Elementary flow |
(1) Material or energy entering the system being studied, which has been drawn from the environment without previous human transformation. (2) Material or energy leaving the system being studied, which is discarded into the environment without subsequent human transformation. |
| Emissions | Solid, liquid and gaseous materials or compounds as well as sounds, rays, heat, concussions and similar appearances. |
| End-of-pipe environment protection | Maintenance environment protection, i.e. measures for environmental protection that is done after the production process. A previous evaluation of the environmental burdens is not necessary. Normally this requires considerable effort. |
| Energy content | The amount of useful energy that can be gained from the conversion of energy sources (coal, crude oil, wood, etc.). |
| Energy flow | Input to or output from a unit process or product system, quantified in energy units. NOTE: Energy flow that is input may be called energy input; energy flow that is output may be called energy output. |
| Environmental aspect |
Element of an organization's activities, products or services that can interact with the environment. |
| Environmental Impact | Any change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from an organisation's activities, products or services. |
| Environmental Impact Assessment | The process by which burdens identified in an inventory are assessed so that an overall environmental impact can be identified. |
| Environmental indicators | An information tool that allows the measurement of environmental, economic and social trends. Indicators can provide both a snapshot of a current situation, and the means to observe changes over time. Examples of indicators include energy usage on site for a unit of production (kWh/product), number of accidents on a site per year, and the cost of producing an individual product ($/product). |
| Environmental management | The systematic collection, analysis and optimization of environmental impacts of the activities, products and services of a company, public utility or other organization. Through the European Environmental Management System EMAS and the ISO 14000 Standards, there are guidelines to formulate elements of the in-house environmental management efficiently and transparently and in a way that they can be revised, thereby, making them easy to communicate. |
| Environmental Management System EMS |
Regulates the planning, implementation and control of the environmental protection in an organisation. The aim of an EMS is the continuous improvement of the environmental efficiency of an organisation. A key feature on any effective environmental management system (EMS) is the preparation of documented system procedures and instructions to ensure effective communication and continuity of implementation. There are certification systems for EMS, which demonstrate that a system is operated to an internationally recognised standard. Alternatively, a customised system can be developed addressing the particular needs of the operation. |
| Environmental Priority Strategies EPS |
Developed for the product development process in Sweden, the EPS Model gathers the effects on the control factors 'Human health', 'Biodiversity', 'Production capacity of ecosystem', 'Abiotic resources' and 'Aesthetic value'. It expresses these as monetarised values of market prices, in the form of 'willingness to pay' (e.g. for the preservation of species and areas of unspoiled nature) and the cost of using energy and resources sustainably. |
| Environmental Product Declaration EPD |
The systematic delineation of LCA-based environmental indicators within a defined framework. ISO TR 14025 governs the criteria through an environmental declaration system (ISO Type III). Environmental declaration systems particularly tend towards measures for semi-finished products that are used in various product systems and which are used in a part of the life cycle which is not yet fixed. EPD' is also the name of Swedish system of environmental declaration. |
| Eutrophication | Nutrients (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus) from sewage outfalls and fertilised farmland accelerate the growth of algae and other vegetation in water. The degradation of organic material consumes oxygen resulting in oxygen deficiency and fish kill. Eutrophication translates the quantity of emission of substances into a common measure expressed as the oxygen required for the degradation of dead biomass. |
| Eutrophication Potential EP |
Index used to measure nutrient enrichment (eutrophication), which may result in algal blooms, caused by the release of sulphur, nitrogen, phosphorous and egradeable organic substances into the atmosphere and water courses. |
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F
| Feedstock energy | Heat of combustion of raw material inputs, which are not used as an energy source, to a product system. |
| Final product | Product which requires no additional transformation prior to its use. |
| Front-of-pipe environment protection | Preventive environment protection, i.e. products are designed in an environmentally friendly way. |
| Fugitive emission |
Uncontrolled emission to air, water or land. EXAMPLE: Material released from a pipeline coupling. |
| Functional unit | Quantified performance of a product system for use as a reference unit in an LCA study. When conducting an LCA, it is necessary to consider a process' energy and material flows through the input and output stages with respect to an appropriate unit, so that all flows are considered on an equal footing. Such a unit is called the functional unit and can take a number of forms including mass, volume or a given number of a manufactured article. |
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G
| Global Warming Potential GWP |
The Global Warming Potential, a number that refers to the amount of global warming caused by a substance. The GWP is the ratio of the warming caused by a substance to the warming caused by a similar mass of carbon dioxide. Thus, the GWP of CO2 is defined to be 1.0. The GWP is an index that compares the relative potential of the 6 greenhouse gases to contribute to global warming i.e. the additional heat/energy which is retained in the Earth's ecosystem through the release of this gas into the atmosphere. The additional heat/energy impact of all other greenhouse gases are compared with the impacts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and referred to in terms of a CO2 equivalent (CO2eq) i.e. carbon dioxide has been designated a GWP of 1, Methane has a GWP of 23. Global Warming Potential, GWP100, for example, translates the quantity of emission of gases into a common measure to compare their contributions - relative to carbon dioxide - to the absorption of infrared radiation in a 100 year perspective. |
| Goal and scope | First phase of an LCA, which describes the motives of the study and important definitions for inventory analysis and impact assessment. |
| Green Papers | Papers published by the European Commission which shall implement a debate on political principles in Europe. |
| Greenhouse Effect | The sun's energy radiation (UV/vis wavelength) hitting the earth's surface is partially absorbed by the earth and partially reflected to the earth's atmosphere as infrared radiation (IR wavelength). The absorbed share leads to a direct warming of soil, water and air. Some gases in the atmosphere contribute to the warming of the troposphere as they let the sun's radiation pass, but absorb the reflected IR radiation from the earth. So some of the heat energy is not being emitted back to space, but remains within the atmosphere (see greenhouse or winter garden mechanism). Additional heat storage in the atmosphere is taking place. Gases contributing to this natural effect are, for example, steam (water) or carbon dioxide (CO2). Today, the average temperature on earth is approximately +15°C. Without the natural greenhouse effect of the atmosphere (discovered and described by FOURIER and ARRHENIUS) the average temperature on earth would be 33K less; approximately -18°C. No life would be possible. Steam in the troposphere has the most significant contribution to this natural greenhouse effect. 21K of the total 33K are due to the energy absorption of steam; carbon dioxide contributes approx. 7K. Today, man's activities lead to additional releases of gases contributing to the greenhouse effect. An additional man-made greenhouse effect caused by releases of carbon dioxide, methane, CFCs and other emissions, can be expected. |
| Greenhouse Gases | Greenhouse gases allow sunlight to pass through, but absorb infrared rays that reflect off bodies of land and water, inhibiting their escape from the earth's atmosphere and resulting in global warming |
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I
| IMPACT 2002+ | The life cycle impact assessment methodology that proposes a combined midpoint/ damage approach, linking all types of life cycle inventory results (elementary flows and other interventions) via 14 midpoint categories to four damage categories. |
| Impact Categories | Group of life cycle impacts that illustrate the connection among certain inventory results and a specific indicator or endpoint. Environmental burdens can have a number of potential effects on the environment, such as global warming, acidification and human health effects - these are called impact categories. To form an appraisal of the burdens, it is advisable to group the burdens into several impact categories to aid assessment |
| Indicator parameter |
E.g. biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). |
| In-house eco-balancing | Integrated balancing of a company's in and outgoing material and energy flows over a specified time frame (normally a year). The ingoing flows of material, energy and water (Inputs) are contrasted with the outgoing flows such as products, waste, discharged air, wastewater and energy releases (Outputs). Can be seen as part of a life cycle eco-balance, considering all products that are produced in-house. |
| Input | Material or energy which enters a unit process or a system. Materials may include raw materials or products. |
| Input/Output-Analysis I/O Analysis |
Considers flows that go over the defined system boundaries, which can be physical or monetary. Used for the analysis of conditions, and their changes, in production systems. |
| Integrated Product Policy IPP |
IPP aims to improve the ecological properties of products and services along their whole life cycle. It encourages innovations and the cooperation of various lobbies. Life Cycle Assessment is seen as a suitable instrument for finding effective solutions associated with the IPP. |
| Intermediate product |
Input to or output from a unit process which requires further transformation. |
| Interested party |
Individual or group concerned with or affected by the environmental performance of a product system, or by the results of the life cycle assessment. |
| International Organization for Standardisation ISO |
The international umbrella organization of national standardization institutes from 140 countries. Germany is represented in ISO by the German Institute for Standardization (DIN). ISO offers the most wide spread quality management model, including an internationally accepted definition of quality. |
| Inventory | Process consisting of relevant inputs and outputs of a product system. These inputs and outputs may include the use of resources and releases to air, water and land associated with the system. |
| Inventory parameter | Such as emissions, energy and material resources, waste, etc. |
| ISO 14000 | The ISO 14000 series is a family of environmental management standards developed by the TC 207 (Technical Committee) of the International Organization for Standardisation (ISO). The ISO 14000 standards are designed to provide an internationally recognised framework for environmental management, measurement, evaluation and auditing. They do not prescribe environmental performance targets, but instead provide organisations with the tools to assess and control the environmental impact of their activities, products or services. The standards address the following subjects: environmental management systems; environmental auditing; environmental labels and declarations; environmental performance evaluation; and; and Life Cycle Assessment. |
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L
| Land Use | Impact categories for analyzing the size, time frame and quality of occupied surfaces and changes to them. |
| Life Cycle | Shows the interlinked stages of the fabrication of a product system which are connected with each other from raw material acquisition or generation of natural resources to the final disposal. |
| Life Cycle Assessment LCA |
This is a method to quantitatively assess the environmental impact of a product from the procurement of the raw materials, through the production, distribution, use, disposal and recycling of that product, these being the stages which constitute the product's lifecycle. |
| Life Cycle Costing LCC |
Life Cycle Costing is a technique to establish the life cycle costs of a product. It is a structured approach that addresses all the elements of this cost and can be used to produce a spend profile of the product or service over its anticipated life-span (manufacture, use, maintenance, repair and disposal). The results of an LCC analysis can be used to assist management in the decision-making process where there is a choice of options. The accuracy of an LCC analysis diminishes as it projects further into the future, so it is most valuable as a comparative tool when long term assumptions apply to all the options and consequently have the same impact. |
| Life Cycle Engineering | LCE permits the technical, economic and environmental investigation of processes, procedures and products. |
| Life Cycle Impact Assessment LCIA |
Phase of an LCA which helps to ascertain and evaluate the potential environmental impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle. |
| Life Cycle Interpretation | Interpretation is the phase of LCA in which the findings from the inventory analysis and the impact assessment are combined together, consistent with the defined goal and scope in order to reach conclusions and recommendations for decision makers. |
| Life cycle inventory analysis |
Phase of life cycle assessment involving the compilation and quantification of inputs and outputs, for a given product system throughout its life cycle. |
| Life Cycle Management | This term is used to describe the process of integrating life cycle thinking into management systems. |
| Life Cycle Risk Management | Shows the environmental risks and is integrated into the business risk management. |
| Life Cycle Inventory | The result of gathering data on all the energy and material input flows required by a process or product and all the output emissions to air, water and land, including solid waste. |
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M
| Management system | System to support operational processes. |
| Material-Flow Management | In the operational material-flow management, the energy and material flows are collected, analysed and optimized systematically within the location borders of an enterprise. |
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N
| Non Methane Volatile Organic Compounds NMVOC |
NMVOCs which include such compounds as propane, butane, and ethane are emitted primarily from transportation, industrial processes, and non-industrial consumption of organic solvents. |
| Normalisation | Results of the life cycle inventory or an impact assessment may differ in unit or order of magnitude. To analyse or describe the relevance of the individual contributions to an environmental problem and to relate the different units of an impact assessment, it is logical to carry out a normalisation. The normalisation relates the results of the analysis to the known total amount of an impact category and is to be carried out separately for each impact category. It does not define the relevance of impact categories among each other to evaluate a single environmental score. The single score requires a cross-category weighting. The normalisation does, however, indicate the contribution of an impact category (GWP, ODP, AP, etc.) caused by a process, product or lifecycle related to a total amount of an impact of a defined reference unit (land, continent, world). Normalisation is an important step, without which the weighting of different environmental impacts (based on various reference parameters and units) would have no meaning. |
| Nutrification Potential NP |
see Eutrophication Potential (EP) |
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O
| Open-loop Recycling | The reuse of a product in another product system (e.g. old glass used for fiberglass) |
| Open-loop Reuse | The use of a product, in its same form, in another product system or application (e.g. the use of railway sleepers in landscaping). |
| Output | The material or energy which leaves a system or unit process. Materials may be products, pollutants, emissions or waste. |
| Ozone Depletion Potential ODP |
The ODP is the ratio of the impact on ozone of a chemical compared to the impact of a similar mass of CFC-11. The ODP of CFC-11 itself is defined to be 1.0. Other ozone-depleting substances have ODPs ranging from 0.02 to 10. Ozone forms a layer in the stratosphere protecting plants and animals from much of the sun's harmful UV-radiation. The ozone levels have declined as a consequence of CFCs and halons released into the atmosphere. A depletion of the ozone layer will increase the UV-radiation at ground level. |
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| Photochemical ozone creation potential POCP |
Photochemical ozone or ground level ozone is formed by the reaction of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides in the presence of heat and sunlight. Ground-level ozone forms readily in the atmosphere, usually during hot summer weather. Photochemical ozone creation potential translates the quantity of emission of gases into a common measure to compare their contributions - relative to ethylene - to the formation of photochemical oxidants. Measured in kg C2H4- Equivalent. |
| Physical parameter | E.g. surface to be lacquered. |
| Practioner | Individual or group that conducts a life cycle assessment. |
| Primary Energy | Energy embodied in natural resources (e.g. coal, crude oil, sunlight, uranium) that has not undergone any anthropogenic conversion or transformation. |
| Problem Oriented Characterisation-Approach (CML 2001) |
Method of impact assessment for the characterisation of emissions. The method calculates the amount of environmental loading to air and water, from emissions through to legal limits. It is an established impact assessment method based on a list of impact categories and best available models drawn up by the SETACEurope Working Group on Impact Assessment. The impact indicators focus on the so-called midpoints of the cause-effect chain. |
| Process energy | Energy input required for a unit process to operate the process or equipment within the process excluding energy inputs for production and delivery of this energy. |
| Process parameter | E.g. chip volume, surface to be lacquered, reject ratio, thickness of processed sheet, ? |
| Product declaration | See eco-labelling. |
| Product system | Collection of materially and energetically connected unit processes which performs one or more defined functions. NOTE: In this International Standard, the term "product" used alone includes not only product systems but can also include service systems. |
| Public environmental reporting | The voluntary public presentation of information about an organisation's environmental performance over a specified period, usually a financial year. An organisation's public environmental report may be published as a stand-alone document, on a company web site or as part of an annual report. |
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R
| Raw material | Primary or secondary material that is used to produce a product. |
| Recycling | A resource recovery method involving the collection and treatment of a waste product for use as a raw material in the manufacture of the same or a similar product. The EU waste strategy distinguishes between: reuse meant as a material reuse without any structural changes in materials; recycling meant as a material recycling, only, and with a reference to structural changes in products; and recovery meant as an energy recovery only. |
| Recycling - Closed loop | Recycling of products, energy or materials that can be used again in the production of that same product. |
| Recycling - Open loop | Recycling of products, energy and materials that can be used again in the production of similar or different products. |
| Reference flow | Measure of the needed outputs from processes in a given product system required to fulfill the function expressed by the functional unit. |
| Renewable energy | Energy taken from sources that are inexhaustible, e.g. wind, solar and geothermal energy and biofuels. |
| Resource | Naturally occurring, useful materials or organisms such as ores and fossil energy sources but also air, water and biomass. |
| Resource Extraction | Activities associated with the provision of raw materials. Included in this are exploration (e.g. searching for oil) and extraction (e.g. coal and ore mining). For the land and forestry industry, this means cultivation and harvesting. |
| Result parameter | E.g. inventory parameter like a emission or impact assessment category. |
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| Sensitivity analysis |
Systematic procedure for estimating the effects on the outcome of a study of the chosen methods and data. |
| Sink | Place were carbon is stored, mostly used for forests and underground/deep sea reservoirs of CO2. |
| SO2-Equivalent | The quantitative expression of the acidification potential, expressed in SO2 equivalents. The acidification potential of air pollutants other than SO2 , such as NOx, HCl, HF, NH3 und H2S, are given in their SO2 equivalents. |
| Source | Any process or activity, which releases GHGs into the atmosphere. |
| Sustainability | The idea that the ongoing survival of the global environment and development of society require economic, environmental and social issues to be considered in an integral fashion when pursuing business and other types of activities. |
| Sustainable development | Development that provides economic, social and environmental benefits in the long term, having regard to the needs of living and future generations' [Brundtland, 1987]. Introduces the concepts of inter-generational equity and that the Earth can no longer act as an infinite resource or infinite sink. Sustainable development tends to be applied through government and supra-governmental policy to nations and industrial sectors. Industrial Sustainability must fit within such broad policy frameworks. |
| System Boundary | The system boundaries determine which unit processes are to be included in the LCA study. Defining system boundaries is partly based on a subjective choice, made during the scope phase when the boundaries are initially set. When conducting an LCA, it is necessary to identify the limits of the study, i.e. how far back and forward in a product's life-cycle it is necessary to gather data. For example, in the case of a washing machine, upstream options include placing the boundary at the factory gate (i.e. the point where materials are received) or at the point where raw materials are extracted from the ground. |
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T
| Transparency | Open, comprehensive and understandable presentation of information. |
| Toxicity | The word toxicity is derived from Greek. Generally one differentiates with respect to acute, sub-acute, sub-chronic and chronic toxicity, which are defined over the duration and frequency of the effect. The toxicity of a substance depends on different parameters. Depending where the toxicity manifests itself, one speaks of eco-toxicity, toxicity to fish, daphnia, algae, bacteria and to humans also of various human toxicity (e.g. gene toxicity). As these effects should not be analysed in detail (in the context of a LCA), the potential toxicity of materials due to the chemical conditi on, the original point of emission and its fate after entering the environment, has to be characterised. Thus potential contributions to currently occurring toxic loads are determined. |
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U
| Uncertainty analysis |
Systematic procedure to ascertain and quantify the uncertainty introduced into the results of a life cycle inventory analysis due to the cumulative effects of input uncertainty and data variability. NOTE: Either ranges or probability distributions are used to determine the uncertainty in the results. |
| Unit process |
Smallest portion of a product system for which data are collected when performing a life cycle assessment. |
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| Volatile Organic Compounds VOC |
The term volatile means that the compounds vaporize, that is, become a gas, at normal room temperatures. |
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W
| Waste | Materials that are not prime products (that is, products produced for the market) for which the generator has no further use in terms of his/her own purposes of production, transformation or consumption, and of which he/she wants to dispose. Wastes may be generated during the extraction of raw materials, the processing of raw materials into intermediate and final products, the consumption of final products, and other human activities. Residuals recycled or reused at the place of generation are excluded. |
| Weighting | The weighting of different environmental impacts among each other is an aspect of the ecological assessment in LCE and LCA, used in cases where several environmental effects are summarised with one numerical factor. However, weighting is not a science supported procedure. It is more subjective and is based on value-choices. These determine the strength of the weighting, since different sets of values can be used to examine whether or not a result is influenced by individual preferences or is stable. Weighting can also help to identify key areas of improvement by guiding and focusing the identification of trade-offs and the necessity to find solutions to overcome a possible deadlock situation. The basis for the weighting step can be different value systems from different origins. They can be based on national policy, social and societal preferences, a company's political policy or on individual preferences. Weighting does not provide any new insight, it merely consolidates information. Hence, in practice, industrial product development and optimisation is often carried out without an explicit weighting procedure. |
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