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Broadening GHG accounting with LCA: application to a waste management business unit

¹ CIRAIG, Department of Chemical Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal (Qc)
² Veolia Environnement Recherche et Innovation

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sophie.fallaha{at}polymtl.ca.

	Abstract

In an effort to obtain the most accurate climate change impact assessment, greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting is evolving to include life-cycle thinking. This study (1) identifies similarities and key differences between GHG accounting and life-cycle assessment (LCA), (2) compares them on a consistent basis through a case study on a waste management business unit. First, GHG accounting is performed. According to the GHG Protocol, annual emissions are categorized into three scopes: direct GHG emissions (scope 1), indirect emissions related to electricity, heat and steam production (scope 2) and other indirect emissions (scope 3). The LCA is then structured into a comparable framework: each LCA process is disaggregated into these three scopes, the annual operating activities are assessed, and the environmental impacts are determined using the IMPACT2002+ method. By comparing these two approaches it is concluded that both LCA and GHG accounting provide similar climate change impact results as the same major GHG contributors are determined for scope 1 emissions. The emissions from scope 2 appear negligible whereas emissions from scope 3 cannot be neglected since they contribute to around 10% of the climate change impact of the waste management business unit. This statement is strengthened by the fact that scope 3 generates 75% of the resource use damage and 30% of the ecosystem quality damage categories. The study also shows that LCA can help in setting up the framework for a annual GHG accounting by determining the major climate change contributors.

First published on October 23, 2009, doi:10.1177/0734242X09352505

Waste Management & Research 2009;27:885.

A more recent version of this article appeared on November 1, 2009


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