Sustainability Analysis: Environmental
Life-cycle Assessment (LCA)
- LCA is a technique for analyzing and quantifying the environmental impacts of a product, system, or process.
- LCA is a comprehensive approach that examines material and energy inputs and outputs over the life cycle of the product or process.
- LCA quantifies a range of potential environmental impacts, such as ozone depletion, acidification, eutrophication, and smog formation.
- LCA results are context specific. Therefore, LCA studies should not be directly compared since each study is performed to address a specific question.
Resources
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LCA of Pavements Tech Brief -
Pavement LCA Framework -
A Primer on LCA for Pavements
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LCAPave Tool -
LCA Webinar Part I: Concepts -
LCA Data Needs Tech Brief
Case studies featuring LCA
- Perpetual pavements in Iowa
- Use of SMA, OGFC, and Micro-milling in Georgia
- Louisiana Experience w/ Inverted Pavements
- Superpave 5: Potential Asphalt Surface Mix
- In-place and Central plant Recycling of Asphalt Pavements in Virginia
- Concrete Material and Construction Innovations in Colorado
- Long-Life Concrete Pavement in Minnesota
Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)
- EPDs are a transparent, verified type III eco-labels that communicate the environmental footprint of products, such as construction materials.
- EPDs can encourage the demand for and supply of products that promote more sustainable use of finite resources and create less stress on the environment.
- EPDs follow the standardized LCA defined based on the stakeholders' consensus and documented in the Product Category Rules (PCR) and subjected to a critical review process.
- EPDs can be product- and facility-specific but may also be for a generic product from a group of manufacturers (e.g. regional or industry-average EPD).
- EPDs based on the same PCR can be compared to identify materials with improved environmental performance, given that the PCR provides enough prescriptiveness for comparability.
- EPDs and PCRs are not required by federal law or regulations.