Terminology for future-oriented life cycle assessment: review and recommendations
Other text in scientific journal, 2024

PurposeĀ Some future-oriented life cycle assessment (LCA) terms, particularly prospective and ex-ante, show notable increase in use in publications over the last decade. However, scholars have pointed out that it is currently unclear exactly what these terms mean and how they are related. This paper aims to explain defining differences between future-oriented LCA terms and provide terminology recommendations.
MethodsĀ Existing definitions of future-oriented LCA terms were reviewed and analyzed. Workshops were held where defining differences of future-oriented LCA terms were discussed.
Results Temporal positionality and technology maturity appear to be two critical aspects of future-oriented LCA. Prospective and ex-ante LCA are similar, with the possible difference that ex-ante LCA always involves an increase in technology maturity in the future. Considering the notable similarities, it seems reasonable to converge terms to mitigate field fragmentation and avoid terminology confusion.
Conclusions To denote LCA studies with a future temporal positionality, we recommend using the term prospective LCA, defined as "LCA that models the product system at a future point in time relative to the time at which the study is conducted". Furthermore, since technology maturity is clearly a critical aspect for prospective LCA, we recommend prospective LCA studies to clearly define the maturity of the technologies modeled in the production system.

Ex-ante

Emerging technologies

Prospective

Retrospective

Anticipatory

Author

Rickard Arvidsson

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Environmental Systems Analysis

Magdalena Svanström

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Environmental Systems Analysis

Björn Sandén

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Environmental Systems Analysis

Nils Thonemann

Leiden University

Bernhard Steubing

Leiden University

Stefano Cucurachi

Leiden University

International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment

0948-3349 (ISSN) 1614-7502 (eISSN)

Vol. 29 4 607-613

Subject Categories

Other Environmental Engineering

DOI

10.1007/s11367-023-02265-8

More information

Latest update

4/11/2024