Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool used to evaluate the potential environmental impact of a product, process or activity throughout its entire life cycle by quantifying the use of resources (“inputs” such as energy, raw materials, water) and environmental emissions (“outputs” to air, water and soil) associated with the system that is being evaluated.
LCA is Not Risk Assessment. This is because LCA does not consider exposure, which is critical for assessing risk. LCA quantifies emissions, but the actual impacts of those emissions depend on when, where and how they are released into the environment.
Phi Beta Iota: The day will come when every single man-made artifact will have an embedded Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and all of this information will be easily exploited within a Global Game such that we all work together to wring fraud, waste, and abuse out of the Whole Earth World System.
