A Critique of Life Cycle Assessment; Where Are the People?
In this article, we provide a framework and examples to illustrate how human behavior can disrupt the expected environmental outcomes suggested by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The biggest problems are when LCA results are scaled up to make claims about possible future outcomes within a narrowly craf...
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| Format: | Article |
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Elsevier BV
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119641 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7019-6887 |
| _version_ | 1826189906507988992 |
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| author | Gutowski, Timothy G |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Gutowski, Timothy G |
| author_sort | Gutowski, Timothy G |
| collection | MIT |
| description | In this article, we provide a framework and examples to illustrate how human behavior can disrupt the expected environmental outcomes suggested by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The biggest problems are when LCA results are scaled up to make claims about possible future outcomes within a narrowly crafted scenario that ignores real human behavior. There are however, many examples at smaller scales too, where (often) engineers using LCA appear to ignore the behavior of other engineers involved in the development scenario. We argue for the inclusion of more social science in the development of environmental LCA, and the use of a wider array of scenarios (grounded in real behaviors) to portray the possible future development of a product or service at large scale. Ultimately people, not products, need to be at the center of this discussion. Keywords: human behavior, Life Cycle Assessments, social science |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:28:52Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/119641 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:28:52Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Elsevier BV |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1196412022-09-30T09:23:47Z A Critique of Life Cycle Assessment; Where Are the People? Gutowski, Timothy G Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Gutowski, Timothy G In this article, we provide a framework and examples to illustrate how human behavior can disrupt the expected environmental outcomes suggested by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The biggest problems are when LCA results are scaled up to make claims about possible future outcomes within a narrowly crafted scenario that ignores real human behavior. There are however, many examples at smaller scales too, where (often) engineers using LCA appear to ignore the behavior of other engineers involved in the development scenario. We argue for the inclusion of more social science in the development of environmental LCA, and the use of a wider array of scenarios (grounded in real behaviors) to portray the possible future development of a product or service at large scale. Ultimately people, not products, need to be at the center of this discussion. Keywords: human behavior, Life Cycle Assessments, social science 2018-12-13T19:10:12Z 2018-12-13T19:10:12Z 2018-04 2018-11-28T18:28:46Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2212-8271 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119641 Gutowski, Timothy G. “A Critique of Life Cycle Assessment; Where Are the People?” Procedia CIRP 69 (2018): 11–15. © 2018 The Author https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7019-6887 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/J.PROCIR.2018.01.002 Procedia CIRP Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf Elsevier BV Elsevier |
| spellingShingle | Gutowski, Timothy G A Critique of Life Cycle Assessment; Where Are the People? |
| title | A Critique of Life Cycle Assessment; Where Are the People? |
| title_full | A Critique of Life Cycle Assessment; Where Are the People? |
| title_fullStr | A Critique of Life Cycle Assessment; Where Are the People? |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Critique of Life Cycle Assessment; Where Are the People? |
| title_short | A Critique of Life Cycle Assessment; Where Are the People? |
| title_sort | critique of life cycle assessment where are the people |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119641 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7019-6887 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT gutowskitimothyg acritiqueoflifecycleassessmentwherearethepeople AT gutowskitimothyg critiqueoflifecycleassessmentwherearethepeople |