Life Cycle Assessment Misleads Policy Makers

Life Cycle Assessment Misleads Policy Makers

Work: examines Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) at the science-policy interface.

Lesson: LCA cannot predict environmental outcomes of policy options. Different LCA studies cannot be assumed to be comparable. These considerations must be acknowledged at the science-policy interface.

Credit: R.J. Plevin, M.A. Delucchi & F. Creutzig, 'Using Attributional Life Cycle Assessment to Estimate Climate-Change Mitigation Benefits Misleads Policy Makers' (2014) Journal of Industrial Ecology.

More: the editorial of R. Anex & R. Lifset introduces the work and the numerous responses it generated: M. Brandão and colleagues; B.E. Dale & S. Kim; E. Hertwich, and the response from original authors.