DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1065/lca2002.06.083.1 --- Intention, Goal, Scope, Background. BASF has developed the tool
of eco-efficiency analysis to address not only strategic issues, but
also issues posed by the marketplace, politics and research. It was
a goal to develop a tool for decision-making processes which is
useful for a lot of applications in chemistry and other industries.
Objectives. The objectives were the development of a common
tool, which is usable in a simple way by LCA-experts and understandable
by a lot of people without any experience in this
field. The results should be shown in such a way that complex
studies are understandable in one view.
Methods. The method belongs to the rules of ISO 14040 ff.
Beyond these life cycle aspect costs, calculations are added and
summarized together with the ecological results to establish an
eco-efficiency portfolio.
Results and Discussion. The results of the studies are shown in a
simple way, the eco-efficiency portfolio. Therefore, ecological data
are summarized in a special way as described in this paper. It could
be shown that the weighting factors, which are used in our method,
have a negligible impact on the results. In most cases, the input
data have an important impact on the results of the study.
Conclusions. It could be shown that the newly developed ecoefficiency
analysis is a new tool, which is usable for a lot of
problems in decision-making processes. It is a tool which compares
different alternatives of a defined customer benefit over
the whole life cycle.
Recommendations and Outlook. This new method can be a helpful
tool in different fields of the evaluation of product or process
alternatives. It can be used in research and development as
well as in the optimization of customer processes and products.
It is an analytical tool for getting more sustainable processes
and products in the future |
