Publication

Weighting factors for LCA - A new set from a global survey

In this article, Marco Cinelli et al., provide an approach for eliciting population’s preferences in order to calculate weights for use in the optional weighting step in Life Cycle Assessment.

Author: Marco Cinelli, Ayşe Bayazıt Subaşı, Cecilia Askham, Erlend Dancke Sandorf, Luis Cândido Dias, Danny Campbell, Elçin Filiz Taş, Norihiro Itsubo, Christine Betty Nagawa, Christine Mugumya Kyarimpa, Mamadou Djerma, Bazoin Sylvain Raoul Bazie
Date: 19 August 2024
Links: Read the full article here

This paper provides global weights for the three endpoint impact categories of the United Nations Environment Programme Life Cycle Initiative’s 'Global Guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment Indicators and Methods' project, namely human health, ecosystem quality, and natural resources and ecosystem services.

The authors use two methods, which produced similar weights overall, although some differences emerged when disaggregated by income groups. The weights proposed in this paper are suitable for decision-makers or users who wish to use survey-derived weights for endpoint-based life cycle assessment when applying the Areas of Protection from the Global Guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment Indicators and Methods. These weights can be used in projects where the decision-makers do not want to or have no resources to identify a set of weights themselves, or when decision-makers are not involved.

Table 1. Weights obtained for the three target areas according to the three approaches that were used

How can these weights be used?

The weights obtained are adimensional, between 0 and 1, and can be used by Life Cycle Assessment practitioners (e.g., consultants) and researchers to calculate comprehensive scores for environmental impacts of products and processes.