Value Choices in Life Cycle Impact Assessment of Stressors Causing Human Health Damage

Summary This article investigates how value choices in life cycle impact assessment can influence characterization factors (CFs) for human health (expressed as disability‐adjusted life years [DALYs]). The Cultural Theory is used to define sets of value choices in the calculation of CFs, reflecting t...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of industrial ecology 2011-10, Vol.15 (5), p.796-815
Main Authors: De Schryver, An M., van Zelm, Rosalie, Humbert, Sebastien, Pfister, Stephan, McKone, Thomas E., Huijbregts, Mark A. J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Climate change
Cultural Theory
Ecology
Egalitarianism
Environmental policy
Global warming
Health
human health
industrial ecology
Industrial policy
Industry
life cycle impact assessment (LCIA)
Life cycles
Life expectancy
Pollution control
Public health
Radiation
Social policy
Studies
Sustainable development
uncertainty analysis
Value
Water
Water supply
Well-being
Western Europe
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Summary This article investigates how value choices in life cycle impact assessment can influence characterization factors (CFs) for human health (expressed as disability‐adjusted life years [DALYs]). The Cultural Theory is used to define sets of value choices in the calculation of CFs, reflecting the individualist, hierarchist, and egalitarian perspectives. CFs were calculated for interventions related to the following impact categories: water scarcity, tropospheric ozone formation, particulate matter formation, human toxicity, ionizing radiation, stratospheric ozone depletion, and climate change. With the Cultural Theory as a framework, we show that individualist, hierarchist, and egalitarian perspectives can lead to CFs that vary up to six orders of magnitude. For persistent substances, the choice in time horizon explains the differences among perspectives, whereas for nonpersistent substances, the choice in age weighting and discount rate of DALY and the type of effects or exposure routes account for differences in CFs. The calculated global impact varies by two orders of magnitude, depending on the perspective selected, and derives mainly from particulate matter formation and water scarcity for the individualist perspective and from climate change for the egalitarian perspective. Our results stress the importance of dealing with value choices in life cycle impact assessment and suggest further research for analyzing the practical consequences for life cycle assessment results.
ISSN:1088-1980
1530-9290
DOI:10.1111/j.1530-9290.2011.00371.x