Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment [Hardcover]

Mary Ann Curran (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1996 | ISBN-10: 007015063X | ISBN-13: 978-0070150638

This is a comprehensive resource on the rediscovered area of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as it can be applied to human health and the Environment. This book will be organized in order of how a life cycle assessment is done. The reader will also receive a brief history of LCA and it's re-emergence in 1990. There will be a complete investigation of how LCA can be used to help industry meet their environmental goals.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Improve the environmental profile of your company's products and processes with life-cycle assessment Today, there is a growing awareness that companies across all sectors of industry must take life-cycle responsibility for their activities from "cradle to grave." Life-cycle assessment (LCA) offers a new and powerful way of looking at these activites and their impact on the environment. Let a team of international experts on the cutting edge of LCA help you improve the environmental profile of your company's products and processes. This comprehensive book leads you step by step through the intricacies of this otherwise complicated process, showing how to conduct a complete life-cycle study from start to finish. You'll find clear, detailed coverage of the full range of essential LCA concepts and activities, including: Life-cycle inventory methodology; Life-cycle costing and total cost assessment; Life-cycle design--including needs analysis, formulating requirements, employing selected strategies, and performing evaluations; LCA software tools and databases. Filled with a wealth of real-world examples and case studies from the public and private sectors, the book illustrates how LCA has been useful in making sound decisions on everything from corporate planning to supplier selection to eco-labeling. Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment is an invaluable resource for manufacturers and suppliers, product and process designers, executives and managers, and government officials who want to learn the "ins" and "outs" of this new approach to environmental management for the 21st century.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing (July 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 007015063X
• ISBN-13: 978-0070150638
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,601,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a strong offering., August 26, 1998

By 

Thomas P. Seager - See all my reviews

This review is from: Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment (Hardcover)

Life Cycle Assessment is a complicated and controversial field when applied to environmental problems. Questions like "Paper or plastic?" are as ubiquitous as they are baffling. This book does little to clarify matters. It is at best an introduction to a subjective approach. It should not be surprising to the reader to find that the methods described in this book can be employed by separate analysts to reach entirely opposite conclusions.

In response to a critical review that appears in the Journal of Industrial Ecology v1:4, one of the authors of Environmental LCA defended the text with the argument that LCA is, and always will be a "soft science" and therefore may not satisfy readers that seek definitive answers, as no one methodology could be described as applicable to all problems. His defense is disingenuous. Despite its shortcomings, LCA is a promising tool worthy of further development. The goal of new books on the subject should be to advance towards a definitive methodology that results in consistent, interpretable conclusions. When faced with such an intractable, challenging problem as this, it does us all a disservice to suggest that we should just give up (and presumably settle for the kind of text this author has provided).

A definitive work on LCA would be a welcome addition to my library. This book is not it.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars only scratches the surface of a complex subject, December 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment (Hardcover)

Life Cycle Assessment requires a more comprehensive and thorough approach than the author provides. Areas are left open, and the book raises more questions for the reader than the answers it provides. It is not a text that I will refer to to repond to critical questions. It was a disappointment to me.