Carbon footprint and life cycle assessment are familiar terms you must have come across as you read about the impacts of human activities such as oil production on environmental conservation and sustainability. Oil consultancy companies have been at the forefront in advising oil-producing companies on enhanced oil recovery methods to keep the environment clean for survival.
What the Life Cycle Assessment is
Life cycle assessment (LCA) evaluates the potential impacts that products and services have on the environment during the entire life cycle. The process includes:
- Identifying and quantifying the amount of energy and the raw materials used, emissions and waste materials produced
- Evaluating the potential environmental impacts of these emissions and the waste materials produced
- Assessing the options available to reduce the impacts of the emissions and waste materials on the environment
The life cycle assessment analyzes all stages of products from the extraction of raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, transportation, and waste management while establishing their impacts on the surrounding (land and water use, ore, and crude oil).
If you don’t understand how the LCA works, you can consult experts to help you establish it for your projects.
The main phases of the life cycle assessment include the following:
The Goal and Scope Definition
Goal and scope definition accurately describes the product or service system and functional units you want to assess. The available units are essential, as they enhance the assessment of alternative goods and services.
After assessing the products or services, you now set the goal to determine the application of the products or services and the target audience. You also consider a critical review of the products or services at this stage.
Inventory Analysis of Extractions and Emissions
This stage involves compiling and quantifying environmental inputs (raw materials and energy) and outputs (emissions of pollutants and waste products) of a given product or service system throughout the life cycle. The final inventory then provides a clear list of all the inputs and outputs of the life cycle of your products or services.
Impact Assessment
At this stage, you use the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) method to convert inventory data from the life cycle assessment into possible impacts. The process aims at providing a complete understanding and evaluation of the environmental impacts based on life cycle assessment data.
The life cycle impact assessment is crucial in helping the professionals and decision-makers to understand the damages caused by resource use and emissions, including toxicity, destruction of the Ozone layer, and acidification.
During the life cycle assessment, ensure you draw conclusions that enhance correct decision-making for the growth of your business. Classify the resource use and emissions based on their substantial impacts and quantify them in terms of relative importance to the goal of the life cycle assessment study.
Interpretation
This phase involves systematic identification, quantification, checking, and evaluating data from the inventory analysis and impact assessment and summarizes them based on relevance, contributions, data quality, and limitations.
Interpretation also allows you to evaluate possible opportunities to reduce negative environmental impacts of the product or service while preventing the burden-shifting between impact categories and life cycle phases.
Your conclusions at this phase should be substantial as well. The ISO 14044 standard indicates that a reasonable interpretation should include:
- Identification of significant issues that conforms with the results of the LCI and LCIA phases,
- Evaluation of the study, considering sensitivity, consistency, and completeness, and
- The conclusion adequately captures the limitations and recommendations.
A carbon footprint is defined by the University of Michigan as the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that come directly or indirectly from efforts on an individual, company, event, or product.
You can calculate the carbon footprint by summing the emissions resulting from every stage of a product or service’s lifetime, for example, material production, manufacturing, use, and end-of-life.
Some examples of the greenhouse gases emitted during the lifecycle of a product include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), with varying abilities to trap heat in the atmosphere.
Life Cycle Assessments and Carbon Footprints: How Does It work?
Life cycle assessments (LCA) and carbon footprints are the two standard research methods used to evaluate the impacts of products on the environment. The methods quantify analyses all the inputs and outputs of production from the raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, transport, retail, consumer, and waste management.
The LCA shows the hotspots of the environmental impacts in the supply chain and, most importantly, the supply chain locations with the highest environmental impact. Identifying the areas is essential in improving the sustainability of products, reducing the cost of raw materials and energy.
The carbon capture and utilization (CCU) helps capture the CO2 gas from the sources and convert it into valuable products to reduce environmental impacts and improve economic benefits while reducing environmental impacts such as climate change and depletion of fossil resources.
The high energetic co-reactants such as hydrogen and epoxide are essential for activating the chemically inert CO2. However, the production of hydrogen and epoxide comes with high environmental impacts. This is where the LCA evaluates the ecological effects to enhance strategies to control natural resource depletion and climate change.
Benefits of Life Cycle Assessment
Life cycle assessment provides professionals with crucial information that helps them properly understand how to keep the environment clean throughout their production cycle. In addition, it allows founders and managers to compare products to establish the one with less environmental impact.
Both national and international communities have adopted the LCA to ensure environmental sustainability. The life cycle assessment information is essential in enhancing the following production frameworks:
- Sustainability strategy development,
- Product development and innovation,
- Sustainable procurement, and
- Green marketing and reporting.
- The Carbon Emissions
Sources of Carbon Emissions
According to a recent report, cars and light trucks emitted 1.1 billion metric tons of CO2e, equivalent to an estimated 17% of the total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The report further established that gasoline releases 19.6 pounds of CO2 per gallon when burned. On the other hand, diesel releases 22.4 pounds per gallon for diesel. But the diesel has 11% more BTU per gallon that improves its fuel economy.
On average, a passenger vehicle emits about 0.78 pounds of CO2 per mile driven. At the same time, commercial aircraft greenhouse gas emissions vary based on the factors such as the type of aircraft, distance, passenger and cargo weight, and occupancy rates.
The average domestic, commercial flight emitted 0.39 pounds of CO2e per passenger mile.6,20 while rail transportation emitted 40.8 MMT CO2e, accounting for 2% of transportation emissions in the U.S.
Best Ways to Reduce Carbon Intensity
The two best ways to reduce carbon intensity include the following:
1. Reducing Energy Usage
The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions report shows that about 23% of the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come directly from manufacturing, food processing, and construction industries.
The emissions resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels for heat and power and chemical processes used in steel, iron, and cement production. The industrial sector is responsible for 29.6 percent of total emissions in the United States.
Some of the best ways of reducing energy usage to control emissions include enhancing energy efficiency, walking or biking, using mass transits, and using renewable energy.
2. Carbon Credits
When there is a more significant concern about the increasing environmental pollution resulting from greenhouse gasses emissions into the atmosphere, governments, and regulatory authorities will issue carbon credits to reduce the emission of the gases into the atmosphere.
Only a few companies given carbon credit certificates can emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) up to a specific limit.
The credit limits carbon emissions as each carbon credit allows greenhouse gas emissions equal to a ton of CO2. The set number of credits declines as time goes by, and they can sell the excess to another company.
Also read: 5 Affordable And Eco-friendly Napkins Which You Can Replace With Your Regular Sanitary Pads
