Risk and LCA Sample Clauses

Risk and LCA. Usage of the term ‘risk minimization’ in the context of LCA suggests that LCA can be used for the assessment of risks. It may even suggest that LCA might be a special form of risk assessment. To a certain extent, this can perhaps be justified. Yet, it should be kept in mind that the risks, assessed with LCA, differ in nature from the risks that are usually assessed with (other forms of) risk assessment (Xxx xx Xxxx and Xxxxx 1998). This difference is caused by the nature of the func- tional unit. An important quality of emissions, caused by the life cycle of a product, is the fact that they are delimited in terms of time: they are only emitted during the time that they support the production or use of one functional unit – not a continuous pro- duction or use process. Consequently, their contribution to environmental concen- trations – and therewith to environmental risks – is also delimited in terms of time (Heijungs and Guinée 1994). And even during this delimited time period, a func- tional unit will seldom be responsible for any environmental risk in its full extent. In the first place, many risks are caused by a number of different processes to- gether. In the second place, many processes in a life cycle will not exist exclusively for the performance of the function, represented by the functional unit. Processes like electricity production support a great many product functions simultaneously. It is not easy to describe the direct relationships between the environmental risks, associated with such processes, and the functions supported. As a consequence, the category indicator results in LCA are inevitably rather abstract figures, that cannot be translated directly to easily imaginable or directly measurable environ- mental risks (Figure 2.1). Risk in LCA will always remain a rather abstract concept.