Are you wondering exactly how a LCA evaluates your product's or service's environmental impacts?  Are you curious what the impact category called "ecotoxicity" really means? Or the environmental impacts called "acidification" and "eutrophication"? Ever wonder why one impact assessment method says ecotoxicity is your biggest concern and another says land use is?  This course delves into the science behind the evaluation of the effect any one emission has on the environment. We will discuss the theories behind how emissions are aggregated and weighted within each impact category to produce an effect score, also known as characterization, and illuminate the strengths and weaknesses of the leading Impact Assessment Methods. After taking this course you will understand impact assessment jargon and be able to choose the most robust method for your LCA studies.

  Continuum is a design and strategy consulting firm, with international offices and projects.  We try to incorporate at least a baseline, high-level screening LCA at the beginning of every project just to uncover the largest environmental factors, and familiarize the team members with areas for improvement.  When time and project allows, we do more involved life cycle analysis using SimaPro to generate information about relative impacts between current products and other comparable products.   When we get the chance to share these findings with our clients it is generally very enlightening for them, and they are often surprised by where the real impacts are, and how different products/systems compare to each other. 

  We try to remain involved during conceptualization and design, offering input as to good directions or things to avoid.  As we often hand off conceptual designs to clients it has proven difficult to have input into the final implementation.  We are still trying to figure out how to have more far-reaching effects, and how to impact more of the projects that our group works on.  We are hoping that raising awareness in productive ways (as opposed to negative comments without solutions) will carry on into the client organizations and that they will begin to build internal review, or continue to ask for assistance from external groups. 

  Many of the larger companies we work with have their own internal analysis groups, but they often appreciate our high-level thinking at the conceptual level because their internal reviews often take considerable amounts of time.  They are often only executed a long way down the design path when changes are hard to implement.  We're far from having as powerful an impact as we would like, but we're working hard on it and there is a lot of passion within a core group at Continuum. 

  Thanks for your training help, it has proven very useful and has brought more of us up to speed on the software and life cycle thinking in general.

Triggered by the EPA's Endangerment Finding that greenhouse gases (GHG) pose a threat to public health, the EPA has established the GHG emissions criteria for PSD (Prevention of Significant Deterioration) and Title V permitting under the Clean Air Act. The GHG thresholds for air permitting and implementation schedule were set on May 13th in The Tailoring Rule and since many of our clients will be affected by this rule, EarthShift has partnered with MotiveEarth to offer a free webinar on strategizing for the air permitting process.  MotiveEarth specializes in preparing companies for state and federal greenhouse gas and environmental compliance.  In addition, they support the voluntary efforts of companies seeking to differentiate themselves by taking leadership positions in sustainable practice.  Please talk with your colleagues and let us know if you would be interested in attending this webinar.  The webinar will be offered Thursday, September 30th at 1pm EST.

Toxicity in LCA:working with USEtox- October 7

This one day in-person class covers the theory behind the life cycle impact assessment methods for toxicity, provides explanation of fate, exposure and effect assessment, as well as the similarities  and differences between the toxicity models included in various LCIA methodologies, such as CML2000, IMPACT2002+, TRACI, and ReCiPe.  

The training is given in Portsmouth, NH by dr. Mark Huijbregts, who is a lecturer at the Radboud University Nijmegen, principal developer of the USES-LCA model suite, and co-developer of the USEtox consensus model.

What is USEtox?

USEtox is a scientific consensus model which includes characterization factors for  human toxicity (more than 1000 substances) and for ecotoxicity (more than 2500 substances). UNEP encourages the use of the USEtoxTM model by businesses and governments for charactewrization modeling of human and ecotoxic impacts in LCIA.  The US EPA will incorporate USEtoxTM into TRACI (more information).