Development of a semi-quantitative pre-LCA tool

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a semi-quantitative pre-LCA (life-cycle assessment) tool for assessing the environmental impacts of the production of a printer. This tool provides a quick-and-easy means of assessing the environmental impacts of a complex product, where a full LCA evaluation of the complex product would often require extensive calculations and the analysis is very time-consuming and places a heavy burden on the designer. The tool allows a designer to easily compute a total environmental impact value for each of the various alternative designs. The pre-LCA tool computes an environmental impact value by considering factors such as airborne and waterborne emissions, the recyclability potential, waste disposal, the global warming factor, the energy content of raw materials, the divertible plastic waste potential, etc. The analytical hierarchy comparison method is used for the designers to indicate the relative importance of these factors with respect to their designs. Environmental values for the various factors are calculated from graphs that have been derived based on extensive interviews with engineers involved in the production process, as well as from literature research.