Glossary — Life Cycle Thinking

Glossary

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Academic education: Training provided to students by a college or a university.
Acidification potential: Examples are: Sulphur dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen oxides (NOx), Ammonia (NH3). Acid depositions have negative impacts on natural ecosystems and the man-made environment incl. buildings. The main sources for emissions of acidifying substances are agriculture and fossil fuel combustion used for electricity production, heating and transport.
Allocation: "Partitioning of the input and output flows of a process or other product system to the product system under study." (Source: ISO 14040)
Analysing products (LCA studies): Evaluating the reduction of the product environmental negative effects and setting priorities in product improvement.
Benchmarking products: Comparison of products to determine improvement, optimisation and saving potentials.
Benchmarking sites: Comparison of sites to determine improvement, optimisation and saving potentials.
Best available techniques Reference document (BREF): BAT reference documents creates under the IPPC Directive 96/61/EC "The BREFs will inform the relevant decision makers about what may be technically and economically available to industry in order to improve their environmental performance and consequently improve the whole environment." (Source: http://eippcb.jrc.es/ )
Capacity building: "Improving and building the technical and managerial skills and resources within an organisation." Here related to capacity to perform and/or review LCA studies and providing life cycle related services. (Source: World Bank)
Carbon dioxide: Gas naturally produced by any living organism during respiration including through microbial decay of biomass, and taken up by plants during photosynthesis. Although it only constitutes 0.04 percent of the atmosphere, it is one of the most important greenhouse gases. The combustion of fossil fuels is increasing the Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, which is generally accepted by scientists to contribute to Climate change.
Carbon dioxide equivalent: A metric measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse gases based upon their Climate change potential (CCP). The carbon dioxide equivalent for other emissions is derived by multiplying the amount of the emission by the associated CCP factor, e.g. [x kg gas] * [y CCP-factor of the gas]. For example, the CCP100-factor for Methane is 21 and for nitrous oxide 310. This means that emissions of 1 kg of methane and nitrous oxide are equivalent to emissions of 21 and 310 kg of carbon dioxide, respectively.
Category / Impact category: "Class representing environmental issue of concern." E.g. Climate change, Acidification, Ecotoxicity ec. (Source: ISO 14042)
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM): A mechanism in the Kyoto Protocol that makes it possible for developed and developing countries to perform joint environmental projects in the developing country financed by developed countries. The resulting emission reduction can be credited to the developed country, which payed for the improvement in the developing country.
Climate change potential (CCP): Changes in the global, average surface-air temperature and subsequent change of various climate parameters and their effects such as storm frequency and intensity, rainfall intensity and frequency of floodings etc. Climate change is caused by the greenhouse effect which is induced by emission of greenhouse gases into the air.
Comparative assertion: "Environmental claim regarding the superiority or equivalence of one product versus a competing product which performs the same function." (Source: ISO 14040)
Comparative life cycle assessment: Comparison of LCA results for different products, systems or services that perform the same function. Often the products, systems, or services are competitive.
Cradle to grave: A "Cradle-to-grave" assessment considers impacts at each stage of a product's life-cycle, from the time natural resources are extracted from the ground and processed through each subsequent stage of manufacturing, transportation, product use, recycling, and ultimately, disposal.
Cut-off criteria: "Specification of amount of material or energy flow or level of environmental significance associated with unit processes or product system to be excluded from the study." (Source: ISO 14040)
Depletion of abiotic resources: Consumption of non-renewable resources, such as zinc ore and crude oil, thereby lowering their availability for future generations.
Design for Environment (DfE): Design for Environment (DfE) or Ecodesign are methods supporting product developers in reducing the total environmental impact of a product early in the product development process. This includes reducing resource consumption as well as emissions and waste. New EU directives such as WEEE and RoHS introduce the concept of ecodesign. A sound life cycle based Ecodesign can potentailly enable to provide reliable decision support at a largely reduced effort for performing the study.
Design for recycling (DfR): "Design for recycling is a method that implies the following requirements of a product: easy to dismantle, easy to obtain 'clean' material-fractions, that can be recycled (e.g. iron and copper should be easy to separate), easy to remove parts/components, that must be treated separately, use as few different materials as possible, mark the materials/polymers in order to sort them correct, avoid surface treatment in order to keep the materials 'clean'." (Source: Danish EPA Eco Design Guide)
Eco-efficiency: Joint analysis of the environmental and economic implications of a product or technology, aiming to support choosing the method for production, service, disposal or recovery that makes most ecological and economic sense, ensuring optimum conservation of resources, minimum emissions and waste generation at a low overall cost.
Eco-management and auditing scheme (EMAS): A Community scheme, adopted by the European Union in 1993, allowing voluntary participation by companies performing industrial activities, established for the evaluation and improvement of the environmental performance of industrial activities and the provision of the relevant information to the public. The objective of the scheme is to promote continuous improvements in the environmental performance of industrial activities by:
(a) the establishment and implementation of environmental policies, programs and management systems by companies, in relation to their sites;
(b) the systematic, objective and periodic evaluation of the performance of such elements;
(c) the provision of information of environmental performance to the public.
Ecolabel: An "ecolabel" is a label which identifies overall environmental preference of a product or service within a specific product/service category based on life cycle considerations. Ecolabels exists at EU level (the EU Flower), regional level (e.g. The Swan in Scandinavia), and national level (e.g. The Blue Angel in Germany).
Ecology: The branch of science studying the interactions among living organisms and their environment.
Ecotoxicity potential: Potential environmental toxicity of residues, leachate, or volatile gases to the biocoenosis of plants and animals. Ecotoxic substances alter the composition of the species of ecosystems, destabilising it thereby and additionally threathening sensitive species in their existence.
Emission trading: Market-based approach that makes it possible for organizations or countries to buy and sell greenhouse gas emission reductions . Part of e.g. the Kyoto Protocol.
Endpoint method: The endpoint method (or damage approach) tries to model the effects of emissions directly for the protection targets (natural environment's ecosystems, human health, resource availability). Endpoint methods typically follow the midpoint modelling considering the severity and reversibility of effects and the models' uncertainties.
Energy-using Products Directive (EuP): Directive 2005/32/EC on the eco-design of Energy-using Products (EuP). "Products such as electrical and electronic devices or heating equipment are covered by the directive that provides coherent EU-wide rules for eco-design and ensure that disparities among national regulations do not become obstacles to intra-EU trade. The Directive does not introduce directly binding requirements for specific products, but does define conditions and criteria for setting, through subsequent implementing measures, requirements regarding environmentally relevant product characteristics (such as energy consumption) and allows them to be improved quickly and efficiently." (Source: http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/eco_design/)
Environmental Aspect: Element of an organization's activities, products or services that can interact with the environment.
Environmental assessment: A detailed study of the reasonably foreseeable significant effects on the environment, beneficial as well as adverse, of a product, service or process. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) are examples of environmental assessment methods.