Environmental Life Cycle

Assessment
CEE 12-714 / EPP 19-714

Lecture 1: Introductions and basic concepts

January 17, 2018
Welcome!

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Introductions

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• Instructor
• TAs

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And you?
• Groups of four, interview each other
• Name
• Hometown
• CMU program
• Undergrad degree

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What brings you to this class?
• What do you know about “life cycle
assessment”?
• What do you want to do with LCA tools and
skills?
• How might LCA be relevant to environmental
protection? To sustainability?

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 Environmental life cycle assessment
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• The assessment of environmental impacts of

products or processes from “cradle to grave”

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 Environmental life cycle assessment
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• “Cradle to Grave”
 Raw material extraction
 Manufacturing
 Transportation
 Usage
 Disposal

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 Environmental life cycle assessment
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• Environmental impacts
 Greenhouse gases
 Particulates Just a few
 Water withdrawal examples
 Toxics
 Land use

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Wide range of interesting questions…
• Paper or plastic grocery bags
• Cloth or disposable diapers
• Digital or hardcopy books (and music)
• Plastic water bottles or tap water

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Wide range of useful questions
• What aspect of my product’s life cycle has the
biggest impact on the environment (and why)?
 Driving, building or fueling a car?

 And what should we focus on to reduce impacts?

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Wide range of useful questions
• How do our dietary choices impact the
environment?
 Small and local versus large and distant?
 Omnivore versus vegetarian?

And how significant are the differences?

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How many Earths do we need?

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Specific policy questions…
• Export U.S. LNG to displace coal or Russian
NG?
• GHG implications of wider use of biomass in
fuels and plastics
• Does CO2 enhanced oil recovery help or hurt?
• What are the broader implications of plug-in
electric vehicles within a specific power grid?

And under what

conditions does the
answer change? 14
Topics from F16 LCA Projects
• Commuting via hybrid car, electric car or bus
• Environmental impacts of importing apples from
China
• Water footprint of rice consumption in Pittsburgh
• French versus California wine
• LED strip lighting impacts

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Topics from F17 LCA Projects
• Straw bale vs fiberglass insulation
• Kindle vs paper book
• CMU’s cardboard waste management options
• Lifestraw Personal Water Filter
• Solar roof tiles vs LA and SFC power grids
• Grocery shopping: in-store vs online
• Wind or solar in Schenley Park?
• CMU Graduate Student impacts
• PWSA water extraction, treatment, distribution

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 What will you learn in this course?
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• Applied life cycle thinking

• Life cycle assessment fluency
 International LCA standard (ISO)
 Various LCA model types, how and when to use
 Understanding and using data sources
 How to use commercial LCA software, Excel, MATLAB
to make LCA models
 How to write and critique LCA studies
• Skills to tackle interesting and important
complex, non-intuitive questions.

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 Where does this course “fit”?
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• Graduate course in CEE
 EESS course
 Cross-listed in EPP
• Second of three courses
 Sustainable Engineering (12-712/19-717)
 LCA
 EESS Projects (12-718)
• Spring (elective) course
• Listed (soft) pre-requisites:
 Sustainable Engineering (12-712/19-717)
 Civil Systems Investment Planning and Pricing (12-706)
 Quantitative Methods for Policy Analysis (19-702)
 Engineering Economics (12-421) or comparable

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 Course design credits
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Scott Matthews
• Professor, CEE/EPP
Chris Hendrickson
• CMU Hamerschlag University
Professor Emeritus, CEE/EPP
Deanna Matthews
• Associate Teaching Professor, EPP

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 Intended Audience of Course
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• MS students interested in LCA in a quantitative

capacity
• Ph.D. students pursuing LCA-related research
• Not simply an “Intro to LCA” course
 Focus is on methods, quantitative analysis, critical and
analytical thinking
 Tools to be used: Excel, MATLAB, LCA software, LCA
databases,

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Course requirements
• Reading assignments, largely from book
 Additional readings provided as resources
• 6-7 problem sets (70% of grade)
• Group project (30% of grade)
 Interim deliverables

Read the
syllabus! 21
 What’s in the Syllabus?
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• Contact information
• Textbook link
• Catalog description
• Learning objectives and student outcomes
• Grading notes
• Canvas
• Student roles and responsibilities
• Course project
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•
Class schedule
And much more Read it!
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Some course
mechanics

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Canvas
• All reading and homework assignments, lecture
notes and messaging will be posted on Canvas

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 Textbook It’s free!
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• http://www.lcatextbook.com
• Download each chapter as needed

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 How can you help?
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• Box.com has commenting features. Please use

them!
 To comment, log in using your CMU ID. Re-open the
book to see the comment box.

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Course recommendations
• Come to every class
• Do all of the work
• Take good care

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 Academic Integrity
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• Cheating is copying someone else's already

completed work and handing it in as your own work.
 Not cool.
• Plagiarism is using someone else's published work
and not giving them credit.
 Also not cool.
• Cheating and plagiarism will be handled according
to university policies ... which include the penalty for
the assignment (usually a zero grade), and
reporting the incident to Student Affairs.
 Miserable for everyone.
 Do your own work

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 In contrast…
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• Collaboration – working together
 to frame problem
 work through a solution
 discuss results
 analyze the process
• Fundamental engineering profession skill
• Collaboration encouraged on individual and group
homework assignments
• However, for individual assignments, individual
submissions are required.
 While you may work with another student in solving the problem the
work you hand in must be your own.

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 My Stance
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• I take cheating and plagiarism issues very

seriously
• I report students for violations
 You can be expelled (and this has happened)

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 Remember …
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• TAs and I grade your homework and projects

 Yes, we are busy but …
 Pattern recognition is easy

• The “grey areas” are in collaboration - not

cheating or plagiarism

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Back to course
content

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 Why LCA?
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In “meeting needs of present without compromising

our ability to meet future needs”, we are faced with
obstacles and complexities
 Corporate pressure
 Social pressures
 Regulatory gaps, overlap and barriers
 Uncertain objectives/goals
 Lack of tools to measure progress

“As our world continues to change rapidly and become more complex, systems
thinking will help us manage, adapt, and see the wide range of choices we have
before us.”
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 Why LCA?
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• Intuition not a sufficient framework for analysis!

• LCA = systematic and quantitative method for
comparing and improving products and policies

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Strawbale vs fiberglass insulation

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Strawbale vs fiberglass
insulation

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 And … there are careers in LCA
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• Companies and government agencies

 Assess products, processes, policies
• Some consulting firms specialize in LCA
services
• Peer review
 Standards dictate a peer review for any publicly
released study with comparative assertions
 Growing business area

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38 Re-linking cost and environment
• This is a course on sustainability
• LCA is a tool to assess the ripple effects of
economic, social, and environmental choices
• Goal: life cycle THINKING.

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Course trajectory
1. Introductions 10. Uncertainty
2. Life cycle thinking 11. Input-output LCA
3. Quantitative methods and 12. Process-matrix LCA
life cycle cost analysis
13. Hybrid LCA
4. ISO LCA framework
14. Impact assessment
5. Critical review
15. Structural path analysis
6. LCA data sources
16. Professional responsibility
7. Life cycle inventory
17. Carbon footprinting
8. SimaPro
18. LCA for big decisions
9. Handling multifunction
19. Project presentations
systems

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 Short-term Schedule
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• Today
 HW1 released (only for non-12-706/19-702 students)
• Monday (Jan 22)
 Lecture 2 – Introduction to Life Cycle Thinking
 Read Chapter 1 before class
 HW2 released (required for all students)
• Wednesday (Jan 24)
 Lecture 3 – Quantitative Methods and Life Cycle Cost Analysis
 Read Chapters 2 and 3 before class
 Chapter 2 will be review for 12-706/19-702 veterans
• Monday (Jan 29)
 Lecture 4 – ISO Framework
 Read Chapter 4, LCA Standard
 HW1 due
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 Things to do for Next Class
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• Read Syllabus and Schedule on Canvas

• Read Chapter 1 (www.lcatextbook.com)
• HW1 (for non-12-706/19-702 students)
• Organize discussion/study groups
• Discussion of readings and homework is
encouraged
• Copying homework solutions is cheating
and is strongly discouraged!

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