A life cycle impact assessment method based on multi-environmental dimension

As the most important and controversial phase of life cycle assessment (LCA), the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) has drawn the most attention. How to reflect the spatial characteristics of the environmental impacts has become a significant problem in an urgent need to be solved for improving the transparency and the reliability of the LCIA, especially for that with distinct environmental diversity in China. Based on the multi-environmental dimension, a new life cycle impact assessment method is proposed under the framework of ISO14040. First, pollutants released or materials consumed in the life cycle of the product are related to spatial characteristics in order to reflect the diversity of regional environment. The calculation method of the space characteristic coefficient is presented in detail by analyzing the endurance capacity of regional environmental and environmental standards. Second, midpoint and endpoint categories are chosen and combined briefly that their relationships are discussed according to the environmental mechanism. Next, the normalization references are proposed which reflects the latest and most detailed knowledge of environment science. Also, the distance-to-target method is selected as the weighting method and a single index can be obtained after the weighting. Finally, this LCIA method is applied to study the LCIA of electromotors in China.