Dynamicity for accurate Life Cycle Assessment results: the case of a laptop

The contribution of the present work is to ease lifecycle design through more accurate Life Cycle Assessment results, still maintaining linearity and computation time and complexity low. The paper presents a method and application to accurately and objectively assess the environmental impact of products, considering how the considered flows (input/output) can change over time (i.e., technology evolution, use profile). Therefore, the analysis becomes dynamic, oppositely to the traditional Attributional Life Cycle Assessment. It introduces a temporal dimension, acknowledging that the analyzed system environmental performance evolves due to multiple causes, that are classified in five main categories: design, technology, fade, user and aside, yet maintaining linearity in calculation and the focus solely on the product. The application to the case of a laptop and the relative sensitivity analysis outlines how important but heavy it is to consider factors that can alter the flows entering and exiting the system boundaries. Future work will extend the application of the approach to non-energy-related products.