Environmental impacts of product systems in a life cycle perspective: a survey of five product types based on life cycle assessments studies

Abstract

This paper summarizes results of 18 LCA studies of a variety of products from Norway and Sweden. The products were categorized into five groups based on the functionality and application characteristics, in order to investigate the feasibility of generalization of LCA results. The five product groups were: I: products that are transformed chemically in their application; II: stationary, inert products without intrinsic energy consumption in the use phase; III: stationary, inert products with energy consumption in the use phase; IV: transport products without intrinsic energy consumption in the use phase; V: transport products with energy consumption in the use phase. Statistical tests were carried out to analyze the significance of the characterization into product groups, both within the groups and between the groups. The hypothesis was, that among the products within each group, the environmental impacts would show similar patterns, when distributed on the six life cycle subsystems raw material extraction, product manufacturing, distribution, packaging, use and final waste management. The results show that there are significant differences between the environmental impacts related to life cycle stages within the product groups, whereas very few comparisons between product types are significant. The most important life cycle stages are in general raw material processing, use of the product and final waste management. There are also large differences in evaluation of impacts between the different valuation systems used in the study. It is concluded that there are large differences between product types and life cycle stages, and that these differences are probably even larger when looking to average European conditions. The results should thus only be generalized under specific Norwegian and Swedish conditions, especially regarding energy production.