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LCA Applications

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Life Cycle Assessment

Abstract

The chapter gives examples of applications of LCA by the central societal actors in government, industry and citizens, and discusses major motivations and challenges for the use of LCA to support science-based decision-making from their respective perspectives. We highlight applications of LCA in policy formulation, implementation and evaluation, present different purposes of LCA application in industry at both product and corporate levels, and discuss challenges for LCA applications in small- and medium-sized enterprises. Our synthesis demonstrates the importance of LCA as a tool to quantify environmental impacts of products and systems and support decisions around production and consumption and highlights factors that prevent its even more widespread application.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division for Quantitative Sustainability Assessment, Department of Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, 2800, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

    Mikołaj Owsianiak, Anders Bjørn, Alexis Laurent, Christine Molin & Morten W. Ryberg

  2. CIRAIG, Polytechnique Montréal, 3333 Chemin Queen-Mary, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Anders Bjørn

Authors
  1. Mikołaj Owsianiak
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  2. Anders Bjørn
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  3. Alexis Laurent
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  4. Christine Molin
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  5. Morten W. Ryberg
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mikołaj Owsianiak .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Michael Z. Hauschild

  2. IRSTEA, UMR ITAP, ELSA Research group and ELSA-PACT, Environmental and Social Sustainability Assessment, Montpellier, France

    Ralph K. Rosenbaum

  3. Department of Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Stig Irving Olsen

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Owsianiak, M., Bjørn, A., Laurent, A., Molin, C., Ryberg, M.W. (2018). LCA Applications. In: Hauschild, M., Rosenbaum, R., Olsen, S. (eds) Life Cycle Assessment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56475-3_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56475-3_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56474-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-56475-3

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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