NDLI: “Less is better” and “only above threshold”: Two incompatible paradigms for human toxicity in life cycle assessment?

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Potting, José Hauschild, Michael Wenzel, Henrik
Copyright Year	1999
Abstract	The absence of spatial and temporal information in the data from a typical Life Cycle Inventory puts constraints on the possibilities of subsequent Life Cycle Impact Assessment to predict actual impact. Usual methods for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (often referred to as “less is better” methods) make only limited use of spatial and temporal information, because they predict concentration increases rather than full concentrations. As a consequence it does not seem possible to evaluate whether a threshold value is surpassed. The resulting poor accordance between the predicted impact and the expected occurrence of actual impact is a major problem. This problem is particularly relevant for human toxicity assessment, since the probability of surpassing thresholds here traditionally is the main point of attention. A considerable group of practitioners suggests to follow an “only above threshold” principle by introduction of assessment tools from risk assessment and environmental impact assessment in LCA. Intensive debate is going on about possibilities and limitations of “less is better” and “only above threshold”. The debate is obscured by two underlying discussions (about no-effect-levels and about data-availability) that are partly, but not fully intertwined. Both principles tend to be given fixed positions in these discussions, and are therefore often put forward as fundamentally different and incompatible with each other. This article entwines the discussions, shows parallels between both principles, and uses these parallels to present a new method for Life Cycle Impact Assessment of human toxicity from air emissions that — with limited data requirement from Life Cycle Inventory — can take as well threshold evaluation and spatial source-differentiation into account.
Starting Page	16
Ending Page	24
Page Count	9
File Format	PDF
ISSN	09483349
Journal	The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
Volume Number	4
Issue Number	1
e-ISSN	16147502
Language	English
Publisher	Ecomed
Publisher Date	1999-01-01
Publisher Place	Landsberg
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Human toxicity methodology paradigms less is better only above threshold pollution prevention emissions Environment Environmental Economics
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Environmental Science

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