Assessment of the environmental impacts in life cycle analysis

International audienceEvaluation of environmental impacts is of crucial importance nowadays but it is a complex problem. Different methodologies have been proposed for the last 20 years such as the "Life Cycle Assessment" (LCA) approach. Life Cycle Assessment is an evaluation tool of the impacts on the environment of a system including the whole activities associated with, from the extraction of the raw materials to the elimination of the waste. LCA are ususally considered in a generic way on the basis of potential global effects, as the involved processes occur anywhere in the world. This approach is handling emerging problems such as global warming, ozone depletion. However handling this global approach for human toxicity, aquatic ecotoxicity or terrestrial ecotoxicity is totally conventionnal and is not relevant of any factual effect. Considering human toxicity and ecotoxicity in a Life Cycle Assessment might require to perform it at a different scale (local or regional) as well as to record the inventory data separetely for each site to enable impact assessment at local scale