Environmental Impact Assessment Review 20 (2000) 435456

www.elsevier.com/locate/eiar

Feature article

Life cycle assessment as a tool in environmental impact assessment

Arnold Tukker*
TNO Institute of Strategy, Technology and Policy, P.O. Box 6030, 2600 JA Delft, The Netherlands Received 1 May 1999; revised 6 December 1999; accepted 9 December 1999

Abstract Various authors have stated that Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) differs fundamentally from product Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This paper shows the contrary. LCA is a specic elaboration of a generic environmental evaluation framework. EIA is a procedure rather than a tool, in which LCA certainly may be useful. Particularly in strategic and project EIAs, environmental comparisons of process and abatement alternatives may be relevant. Although these alternatives may lead to different emissions and effects at the location of the process itself (which is usually the focus in project EIAs), they can also inuence the demand for activities upstream and downstream in the production chain. Including such secondary effects in an EIA, which may be crucial for a proper comparison of alternatives, requires a system approach that takes into account all relevant effects. This is, in fact, LCA. A review of ve case studies shows that it is quite feasible to use elements of LCA in EIA. ! 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Environmental impact assessment (EIA); Life cycle assessment (LCA)

1. Introduction Various authors have argued that there is an essential difference between the environmental evaluation in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and the environmental evaluation in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA; see, e.g., [39,40]). EIA is often regarded as a synonym for a local, point-source oriented evaluation of environmental impacts, which takes into account time-related aspects, the specic local geographic situation, and the existing background pressure on the environment. This approach is often regarded
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 31 15 269 5450; fax: 31 15 269 54 60. E-mail address: Tukker@stb.tno.nl (A. Tukker) 0195-9255/00/$ see front matter ! 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S0195-9255(99)00045-1

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as contradictory to the one adopted in LCA, with its emphasis on a timeand location-independent assessment of potential impacts in relation to an entire production system. This view of their apparent incompatibility is probably reinforced by the fact that EIA and LCA were developed and are used by two rather different communities of scientists and practitioners, and are often used in different (legal) contexts. The aim of this article is to show that the differences between EIA and LCA are not as great as they seem. LCA is an analytical tool specically designed to assess the environmental impacts relating to the whole production chain of a good, whereas EIA is a procedure that has to support decision making with regard to environmental aspects of a much broader range of activities. Examples include decisions about plans (e.g., waste management plans), process installations, and location choices.1 I will show that the underlying approach to environmental evaluation in both EIA and LCA is based on the same principles. In principle, the same system denition and yardsticks (impact categories) that are used in LCA can be adopted in EIA. Because my practical experience with Dutch EIA projects formed an important source of inspiration for this paper, it is written from a predominantly Dutch perspective. In many countries the EIA process simply has to give insights into the environmental effects of a particular initiative. Dutch EIA regulations, however, place a great emphasis on comparing the proposed initiative with alternatives: a realistic, most environmentally friendly alternative and a business-as-usual scenario (i.e., when the proposed alternative does not take place). The Dutch habit of comparing alternatives will, therefore, play a relatively large role in this paper. However, I feel that the analysis and conclusions have a more generic value. The paper has the following structure. I will start in section 2 with a general review of the relevant aspects of environmental evaluations, and indicate how they relate to the goal and structure of EIA and LCA. Section 3 discusses a hierarchical level of alternatives in EIA, and shows how the type of impact assessment depends on the level of alternative. I will give examples of the use of LCA characterisation in EIA, and end with conclusions about the relationship between EIA and LCA [35]. 2. Environmental evaluations 2.1. General 2.1.1. Introduction An evaluation of the environmental impacts of human activities for the purpose of comparing alternatives generally involves the three following steps (see Table 1, adapted from [15]; see, also, [34]).
1 EIAs of typical spatial planning questions, such as town planning and highway trajectory choices, fall outside the scope of this paper.

A. Tukker / Environ. Impact Assessment Rev. 20 (2000) 435456 Table 1 Main steps in the evaluation of environmental impacts of human activities

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Step a: Denition of evaluation criteria 1. identication of areas of protection, and the relevant categories of environmental impact end points related to those protection areas; 2. choice of impact category end points relevant to the comparison, and possible midpoints or target points used as a proxy for the true end point; 3. choice of criteria or approach to produce a score or a ranking for the impact category.a Step b: System denition and inventory 4. choice of the system boundaries of the process system relevant to the comparison; 5. inventory of relevant environmental interventions caused by this system; Step 6. 7. 8. 9. c: Selection of alternatives selection of relevant alternatives; integrated judgement of remaining alternatives; sensitivity analysis; nal choice of the alternative.

a Different terminologies are used in this context. I have used a terminology recently agreed upon in LCA [47]. Areas of protection may also be called objects to protect, and impact category end points are also called (possible) effects on those objects (compare [14]).

This general evaluation scheme is divided into three parts. Step A involves dening how and by what criteria alternatives should be judged. In effect, the yardsticks for scoring alternatives are chosen in this stage. In step B, the process trees that have to be included in the system are analyzed, and an inventory is made of the relevant environmental interventions identied in step A (e.g., primary resource use and emissions). In step C, the impacts (identied in step A) of the relevant processes (identied in step B) are compared. Step B has also been termed the system denition step, while step A represents the impact assessment step. Various authors have shown that environmental evaluation tools such as LCA, Substance Flow Analysis, and Risk Assessment can in essence be divided into these two elements (e.g., 22,37,43].2 I will analyze the three elements of this general evaluation scheme in the following sections. 2.1.2. Step A: Choices concerning impact assessment This rst step in the evaluation scheme involves the selection of the yardsticks and criteria to be used to analyze the effects of human activities. Generally speaking, the causal chain between environmental intervention and nal effect is used as a basis for performing impact assessment (see, e.g., [20,24,30]). As illustrated in Fig. 1, human activities can cause changes in the state of the environment through a complex sequence of steps. The gure divides the emissioneffect chain into a number of parts.
2 Many authors also identify a goal and scope denition step. In this case, that element is, in fact, already embedded in steps A, B, and C. Step A, in particular, calls for a careful choice of relevant indicators, and consequently, of the relevant system. This, in fact, involves a considered choice of the goal and the scope of the evaluation.

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Fig. 1. The interventioneffect chain, with global warming as an example.

Using a terminology adopted by many LCA practitioners, these parts can be characterized as follows. At the far left the gure shows the so-called main areas of protection (or safeguard subjects; cf. [33,40]). These are areas that need protection against environmental damage. In principle, what one wishes to dene as a protection area is a value choice. Human health and ecosystem health are often chosen as protection areas, but other choices are also possible, such as the function of a region (cf. [14,34]). Once these areas of protection are dened, the next step is to choose the effects on them that are regarded as important. For instance, if human health is chosen as an area requiring protection, the relevant types of effect, or more formally, the impact category end points, could be death, nuisance, or illness (see, e.g., [2]). Once the area of protection and the impact category end points are dened, impact assessment is, in theory, straightforward. One simply has to model the relation between the emissions and other environmental interventions and the impact category end point in Fig. 1. The only question left is which criteria one wishes to use to judge the magnitude of the effect. However, because this relation is so complex, in practice it is often decided not to model this relation in full. One then chooses a target-point or midpoint in the interventioneffect chain that has a simpler relation with the environmental intervention as a basis for impact assessment, tacitly assuming that the effect on the midpoint reects or has a (more or less known) relation to the effect on the end point. An example of a target point is the concentration of toxic substances in the environment. From the description above, it follows that choices on the following aspects determine which elements one includes in an impact assessment framework: 1. What areas of protection are seen as relevant? 2. Which impact category end points (effect types) are seen as relevant for each area of protection? 3. Does one try to model the full relation between environmental intervention and impact category end point, or does one use a midpoint or target point in the emissioneffect chain as the basis for evaluation? 4. What criterion one wishes to use to judge the magnitude of the effect on this mid- or end point?

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The questions above provide a fairly general framework for environmental evaluations. The answers on these questions determine which indicators or yardsticks one uses in the impact assessment: concrete, quantitative evaluation frameworks can be formulated that are widely used in environmental science [3].3 For example, human health risk assessment (RA) considers only one area of protection, human health. The whole emissioneffect chain is considered, and the actual or potential daily intake of an emitted substance is calculated in the context of a local situation. The criterion used to evaluate the risk is the amount by which intake exceeds a Maximum Tolerable Risk (MTR). In most countries the MTR is regarded as being equal to the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for noncarcinogenic substances, and a 106 chance of a lethal effect a year for carcinogenic substances [6,11]. However, if one wants to calculate the so-called Ecological footprint of a country, totally different choices will be made [45]. Rather than trying to calculate the effects of the emissions from a production plant or system on human and ecological health, one concentrates on the natural resources that the system uses. The area needed to produce each of these resources is calculated, and this value is ultimately used as the (only) impact yardstick. 2.1.3. Step B: Choices with regard to system boundaries Apart from the choice of the yardsticks that reect the types of environmental effect one wishes to include in the evaluation, a second important choice to be made concerns the set of societal activities for which one wishes to analyze those environmental impacts. In other words, system boundaries have to be chosen. There are various possible approaches to this choice. First, one can concentrate on a regionally delimited system: a single plant, or a set of industrial activities in a certain region. Alternatively, one could opt for what has been termed a functional perspective (e.g., [42]). Every individual industrial process needs an input of raw materials or other products, and produces waste that has to be processed. The interventions relating to these input and waste treatment processes, which usually take place at a totally different location, form the so-called Ecological Ru cksack of the central process.4 As one might imagine, alternative central processes that produce the same products may have different supply and waste chains, and thus have a different Ecological Ru cksack. Obviously, important choices also have to be made here with respect to the goal of the evaluation. If one is solely interested in the environmental impacts
It has to be noted that decision theory places a number of demands on such a system of indicatorssee, e.g., [18,25,26,29]. They should be comprehensive and as small as possible in number; they should not overlap; they should be judgemental independent; and they should be operational. 4 Ecological Ru cksack means literally Ecological backpack. The term was coined by the Wuppertal Institutee.g., [46]to indicate the hidden environmental impacts related to the supply processes and waste management processes that serve a central production process.
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of an industrial plant on the immediate surroundings, the regional/local approach is appropriate. However, if one also wants to include indirect effects in other parts of the chain, the relevant approach is the functional approach, which encompasses the whole production system. 2.1.4. Step C: Comparison of alternatives Once the relevant impacts and system have been determined in step A and step B, the comparison of alternatives is straightforward. An inventory is made of the relevant environmental interventions related to the alternative systems in question, and these are translated into the yardsticks one uses. If necessary, a sensitivity analysis is performed, and then, probably after a weighting step, a preference for an alternative is indicated. 2.2. Environmental impact assessment 2.2.1. Goal and formal framework EIA is a procedure that aims to ensure that the decision-making process concerning activities that may have a signicant inuence on the environment takes into account the environmental aspects related to the decision. In the EU, Directive 85/337, as amended by Directive 97/11, forms the legal basis for EIA [14,15]. The Directive has been implemented in national law by the EU member states. Table 2 gives a list of instances when an EIA is obligatory under EU and Dutch law. The Dutch regulation, which is the most important context for the cases discussed later in this article, is somewhat more extensive than the EU directive [14,44]. The preamble to Directive 85/337 states that the effects of a project on the environment must be assessed in order to take account of concerns to protect human health, to contribute by means of a better environment to the quality of life, to ensure maintenance of the diversity of species and to maintain the reproductive capacity of the ecosystem as a basic resource for life. This text suggests that the priority of the EIA Directive is on the protection areas human health and ecosystem health; squandering of resources does not seem to be regarded as a topic that needs to be addressed in its own right. More specically, the EU Directive provides that an EIA must contain at least the following information [14,15]:

a description of the project, consisting of the site, design and size of the project; a description of the measures envisaged to avoid, reduce and, if possible, remedy signicant adverse effects; the data required to identify and assess the main effects that the project is likely to have on the environment; an outline of the main alternatives studied by the developer and an indication of the main reasons for his nal choice, taking into account environmental effects.

Table 2 Some activities, decisions, and projects subject to EIA according to the EIA Directive and the Dutch EIA decree Dutch EIA Decree Decision Member State dependent; most probably licensing See EU Directive Activity Case Decision

EU directive

Activity

Case

Crude-oil reneries and gasication/ liquefaction installations Thermal power stations Member State dependent; most probably licensing See EU Directive

500 tons coal/ bituminous shale a day

300 MW; Nuclear plants in all cases except research facilities Member State dependent; most probably licensing Member State dependent; most probably licensing See EU Directive See EU Directive See EU Directive

Above several capacity limits

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Installations for storage or nal disposal of radioactive waste Integrated works for the initial melting of cast-iron and steel Extraction and processing of asbestos Integrated chemical installations Construction longdistance railways and airports Ports and waterways See EU Directive See EU Directive Member State dependent; most probably licensing Member State dependent; most probably licensing Member State dependent; most probably spatial plan Member State dependent; most probably spatial plan

runway 2100 m for airports

Permitting passage for vessels over 1.350 tons

(continued)

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Table 2 Continued Dutch EIA Decree Decision Member State dependent; most probably licensing Installations for treatment of waste Above several capacity limits Activity Case Decision Licensing Location choice Waste management planning by authorities

EU directive

Activity

Case

Installations for treatment of hazardous waste Member State dependent; most probably licensing Areas for military training 100 ha

Several projects where Member States consider their characteristics so require Transport pipes for gas, water, or other liquids Land use planning Recreation sites Building of residential areas Building of a dike About 10 other activities Depending on the substance and area the pipe passes

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Strategic plan Depending on area Over a certain number Decision making on a of units regional plan for land use 5 km and prole 250 m2

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Annex IV of the Directive explains the information to be provided in more detail. The points it has to cover include:

a description of the environmental aspects likely to be signicantly affected by the proposed project, specically including population, fauna, ora, soil, water, air, climatic factors, material assets, including the architectural and archaeological heritage, landscape and the interrelationship between the above factors; a description of the (direct and indirect, short- and long-term, permanent and temporary, positive and negative) likely signicant effects of the proposed project on the environment resulting from: the existence of the project; the use of natural resources; the emission of pollutants, the creation of nuisance and the elimination of waste.

The EIA Directive has been implemented in somewhat different ways in the national legislation of the EU member states. Common elements are the requirement of public participation in various steps in the EIA process, and, since the amendment of the Directive in 1997, a greater emphasis on a comparison of the proposed activity with alternatives. As far as the Dutch situation is concerned, the key element in EIA is the comparison of the proposed activity (PA), the most environmentally friendly alternative (MEA), and the business-as-usual scenario (i.e., the existing situation is not changed). In principle, the EIA should have an indirect impact on decision making. The initiator of a project, who insists on a PA when there is a very feasible MEA, runs the risk of highly negative publicity. Guidance on how to tackle most of the practical problems in EIA (methods for the prognosis of effects, methods for weighting effects) is given in methodological background reports (e.g., [12,13]). This description clearly indicates that EIA is not simply a tool (in the sense of just providing calculation guidelines, etc.), but is also intended to provide a framework for organizing the decision-making process. 2.2.2. Impact assessment and choice of system boundaries in EIA Because an EIA has to be carried out in many different situations, it is impossible to present a uniform, detailed method of impact assessment and system choice that would apply for every EIA. The impact yardsticks that are chosen will depend on the specic project or plan for which the EIA is being conducted. In fact, Dutch EIA guides recommend the general, step-by-step approach described in Section 2.1 for choosing the relevant impact yardsticks. Although neither the EU EIA Directive nor the Dutch EIA Decree place much emphasis on it, in practice, EIAs in The Netherlands (and in other countries) may specically include squandering of resources as an impact (e.g., [4,5]). Most Dutch EIA guides pay relatively

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Fig. 2. A typical environmental evaluation in a project EIA.

little attention to the element of the choice of system boundaries; it is probably tacitly assumed that it is clear enough which process system has to be analyzed. Choosing the right evaluation framework is a crucial step in EIA. Once the evaluation framework has been established, most of the time and budget for the EIA is used to make an inventory of effects and to formulate and evaluate alternatives. However, because the framework adopted can be decisive for the result of this evaluation process, it is important to make the right initial choices about relevant effects that have to be taken into account. Bisset [7] suggests that checklists can be helpful in this scoping process. He further stresses the importance of involving all relevant groups in the scoping process, including decision makers, the local population, and the scientic community. In fact, the requirements of the EU Directive with regard to public participation ensure such involvement. Hence, the formal frameworks for EIA, in fact, leave a large degree of freedom when it comes to choosing the structure of impact assessment and system denition. In practice, however, it seems that just a few typical evaluation approaches have been developed. Most EIAs concentrate on the possible environmental effects of a project, typically an industrial plant. In most cases, the choice of system is then conned to the plant itself. Furthermore, the effects considered to be of the greatest concern are generally those on the immediate vicinity. This typically leads to evaluations of the extent to which the emissions from the proposed plant enhance existing background concentrations of harmful substances, what effects can be expected on humans and environment, and to what extent they can be mitigated. The plants Ecological Ru cksack (i.e., the environmental interventions from the whole system of supply and waste management chains serving

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the central process) is usually not an issue at all. Fig. 2 illustrates such a typical EIA approach. 2.3. Life cycle assessment 2.3.1. Goal and formal framework LCA is a tool designed to evaluate the impacts of the production, use, and waste management of goods. An LCA may be performed for the purpose of [9]: (1) decisions involved in product and process development; (2) decisions on buying; (3) structuring and building up information; (4) eco-labeling; (5) environmental product declarations; and (6) decisions on regulations. All of these cases are concerned with comparing the impacts related to different products or assessing the dominant environmental problems related to the production of a good. To express the distinction between LCA and EIA at its most extreme, LCA can be seen primarily as a tool to help in making decisions, while EIA, as shown in Section 2.2.1, is also concerned with the process of decision making itself. Moreover, unlike EIA, LCA is not formalized in legislation. However, several scientic expert groups [e.g., under the umbrella of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC)] and international standardization bodies like ISO, have been actively engaged in efforts that have led to a fairly commonly applied framework. This structure is discussed in Section 2.3.2. 2.3.2. Impact assessment and system choice in LCA The evaluation framework most commonly applied in LCA involves the following steps [9,16,21,23,40]: 1. Goal and scope denition: this phase involves dening the purpose of the study, its scope, and a method of quality assurance for the results. A functional unit of a product is dened to be able to compare products on the basis of the functions they fulll rather than their quantitative amount.5 2. Inventory : a system is dened that includes all relevant process chains for the manufacture, use, and waste management of the product function in question. For each process in this chain, the relevant environmental interventions (emissions to air and water, and extraction of primary resources) are inventoried in relation to the process contribution to the central product function. Interventions caused by each process that is part of the system concerned are added by intervention type.The nal result is a list of all environmental interventions associated with the products function. The list is known as the
5 An example for those less familiar with LCA: one milk bottle may be used 15 times, and, thus (provided they are recollected and cleaned), fulll the same function as 15 milk packs.

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Fig. 3. A typical environmental evaluation in an LCA.

inventory table. A typical inventory table may list a hundred or more interventions, such as the total emissions of lead, SO2, and other substances to air and to water. 3. Impact assessment (classication, characterization, and valuation): the purpose of the impact assessment step is to aggregate the information obtained in the inventory. First, a classication of impact categories is chosen, usually reecting a common mechanism of environmental threat (e.g., global warming, acidication, and ozone depletion). In the characterization step, the environmental interventions listed in the inventory table are translated into scores on each impact category. This step is based as far as possible on natural science and generally according to the following formula:6 Si
1j

(eij * Ej)

where Si score on impact category (theme) I; Ej magnitude of environmental intervention j; and eij equivalency factor; a factor that indicates the contribution of one unit of intervention j to impact category i. The result of this operation is called the impact prole of a functional unit of a product. In principle, the impact categories can be aggregated, by means of weighting, to give a single score for the environmental impact of a product. The approach is summarized in Fig. 3. Given the goals of LCA described in the previous section, it is logical that LCA follows a system approach;
For instance, 1 mole of H2SO4 can release two times as much H as 1 mole of HCl. Hence, for the score on the impact category acidication, an emission (intervention) of 1 mole of H2SO4 is regarded as equivalent to an emission of 2 moles of HCl.
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A. Tukker / Environ. Impact Assessment Rev. 20 (2000) 435456 Table 3 Impact categories and units given the CML LCA-manual Type Squandering of resources Pollution Impact category Abiotic resources Biotic resources Global warming Depletion of the ozone layer Human toxicity Aquatic ecotoxicity Terrestrial ecotoxicity Photochemical oxidantformation Acidication Eutrophication Waste heat Odour Noise Ecosystem and landscape Death Unit

447

Affection

year1 kg CO2-eq. kg CFC-11 eq. kg b.w.a m3 polluted watera kg polluted soila kg C2H4-eq. kg SO2-eq. kg P-eq. MJ m3 polluted aira Pa2*s m2s

Adapted from [21]. a Polluted to a dened threshold level.

in other words, that it compares systems that include the supply and waste treatment processes related to a central product function. Impact assessment has been discussed extensively in the LCA community. Because the comparisons in LCA are more specic than in EIA, it has been possible to develop a fairly well-dened impact assessment framework. The question of which impacts are important, and at what level of the impact chain an impact is dened, is basically dictated by the purpose of LCA, which is an environmental management tool for assessing all (potential) environmental impacts related to the fullment of a products function over its whole life cycle. In general, three generic protection areas are distinguished in LCA: resources (which are not explicitly included in EIA), ecological health, and human health [23].7 Usually, a number of more specic impact categories are chosen, with a distinction being made between output- or sink-oriented categories (related to emissions), input- or source-oriented categories (related to the use of resources), and other issues that cannot be included in the rst two categories. The ISO standards for LCA do not stipulate impact categories. Frequently mentioned approaches for selecting and structuring impact categories very much resemble those given in Section 2.1.2. Several inuential manuals and codes of practice provide guidelines for the impact categories that should be included (e.g., [49]). Table 3 gives the example of the impact categories included in the LCA manual of the Centre of Environmental Science Leiden (CML; [21]. (CML will publish a revision
This is comparable to the categorization in environmental monitoring systems at provincial [32], national [20], and OECD level [27]. Some studies proposing indicator systems based on the notion of environmental space use a similar categorization [28,47,48].
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of its manual in the rst half of 2000.) The impact categories they chose correspond very closely to those used in numerous national and international monitoring systems (e.g., [1]). It has to be noted that in mainstream LCA all environmental interventions of the different processes in the system, which may take place at totally different locations and in different time frames, are simply added together. Hence, LCA does not address the question of whether an emission leads locally to concentrations under effect thresholds.

3. The use of (elements of) LCA in EIA 3.1. Introduction In light of what was said in Section 2, in my opinion there is no contradiction between LCA and EIA in terms of impact assessment or system choice. LCAs concentrate solely on a comparison of product systems. When an EIA is not concerned with product systems (or similar systems) but, for example, with a single production plant, the system choice and impact assessment might be different to the one normally used in LCA. But if an EIA has to compare alternatives with similar characteristics to product LCAs (i.e., whole systems related to a central product function, thus a process including its Ecological Ru cksack), it seems logical to use the fruits of the discussions on LCA methodology as a basis for the evaluation in that particular EIA. This section focuses on identifying types of EIA and types of alternatives that have the same characteristics as a product LCA. 3.2. Types of alternatives relevant in an EIA As previously stated, EIA is often seen as an instrument for evaluating alternatives at a local level (an industrial plant, a specic location). Yet, as various authors have demonstrated, and can also be deduced from the types of activities subject to EIA (see Table 1), this view of EIA is too narrow. Following the decision-making levels broadly identied by Feldmann [17], one can roughly discern the following levels of EIA: (a) a strategic EIA (e.g., an electricity plan or a waste management plan); (b) an EIA at company level (or a so-called project EIA); and (c) an EIA of location choices or spatial organization. As I indicated earlier, the comparison of the proposed plan or activity with alternatives plays a major role in the Dutch EIA system, and was recently further emphasised with the 1997 amendment of the EUs EIA Directive. Depending on the level of EIA, several types of alternatives can be distinguished. What is crucial for the argument in this paper is that the type of alternative determines to what extent the Ecological Ru cksacks need to be taken into account, and what number of impact categories have

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to be included, for a fair comparison of alternatives. Possible alternatives are (adapted from [14]): 1. Goal and policy alternatives: the discussion centers on the goal, or the policy for reaching that goal. An example is the analysis of the best mix of prevention, reuse and end treatment in a waste management policy plan. This type of alternative is generally relevant in strategic plans of provincial or national authorities, and thus in strategic EIAs. The alternatives have an impact at what can be termed the system level: whole production chains are inuenced if another policy alternative is chosen. For instance, promoting reuse of waste produces less use of raw materials (thus fewer effects due to the extraction of these materials), but might consume more energy. These kinds of secondary effects can only be taken into account if a system approach similar to LCA is adopted and a broad range of effects is taken into account. 2. Process alternatives: the discussion centres on the production process to make certain products or to fulll certain needs. Such alternatives may be relevant in project EIAs and strategic EIAs. For instance, a strategic electricity plan will most probably involve a choice as to the mode of production of electricity. Obviously, such process alternatives have an impact on the local environment. Applying clean technology often means that fewer local emissions are produced. However, there may be effects on the system level. Certain processes may have to use a better quality of raw material (which has to be rened elsewhere), or may yield better recyclable waste than others. In such cases, these inuences on other production chains have to be taken into account for a fair comparison. Hence, a system approach, taking into account a broad range of effects, is necessary. 3. Abatement alternatives: abatement alternatives are typically relevant in a project EIA. Abatement measures are in general primarily taken to ensure that no direct adverse effects occur on man and nature in the direct vicinity of an industrial plant. In most cases, the abatement measure has to deal with just one or a few critical effects on this local level. Examples are the reduction of VOC emissions to prevent smog formation, or the reduction of the emission of a few critical toxic substances. For an analysis on local level, the comparison of abatement alternatives can thus concentrate on just these few critical effect types. However, it has to be noted that different abatement alternatives, that are equally effective in dealing with the locally critical environmental effect, may have very different overall environmental impacts when all the related systems are taken into account as well. For instance, in comparison to a wet-ue gas-cleaning system a dryue gas-treatment system may produce much more hazardous solid waste that needs further treatment with other technologies.

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4. Location alternatives: the discussion centers on the location of a certain activity. This is the typical decision for which an EIA of location choices is made. In general, this type of alternative has only local consequences, and is unlikely to inuence other links in the production chain. An exception is where the location may have a considerable inuence on transport distances and transports contribution to impacts is not negligible. 3.3. The role of LCA in EIA Table 4 summarizes the relationship between the types of alternatives related to the level of EIA, and the inuence of alternative choices on the extent of the production system that is affected, and the number of impact types that are relevant. Essentially, one could say that an LCA-type evaluation approach is relevant when the alternatives concerned have many indirect inuences in an entire production system and affect a large number of impact categories. Table 4 suggests that LCA-like evaluations can have an important role in strategic EIAs. This is not surprising, because, like LCAs, strategic EIAs deal with whole production systems. It is, in fact, often impossible to make a traditional evaluation of local effects in a strategic EIA because the choices at the strategic level are location independent. Similarly, it is not surprising that the location choices made in a location EIA call for an environmental evaluation approach predominantly related to local effects. In project EIAs, where abatement and process alternatives play a major role, this classical EIA approach of the evaluation of the effects of an activity on the local environment is also relevant. However, Table 4 suggests something else that may be surprising to EIA practitioners. Because quite a few process alternatives and even some abatement alternatives have a clearindirectinuence on the structure of other parts of the industrial production system, there may be important indirect effects. Hence, one could argue that LCAs could also play an important role in project EIAs where these alternatives are relevant. For instance, when considering two water purication systems one would obviously discuss the efciency of the removal of harmful components from waste water and the related effects on the quality of the receiving water basin. However, one might also perform an LCA of the two purication systems to assess the indirect effects related to the auxiliary material use, electricity use, and waste production, which may very well differ. This result may be somewhat counterintuitive, and there may be practical impediments to applying this suggestion in practice. However, I feel that it deserves to be taken seriously. It is widely accepted, and, in fact, often stressed in the Dutch EIA Commissions reviews, that a comparison of alternatives should be fair. An improvement with respect to one type of environmental problem at a specic location must not unconsciously have

Table 4 Relation between type of EIA, alternatives, and level of evaluation Geographical scale on which production chains are inuenced by the decision Local (one chain part) / all one or few ? all Production system (several parts of the production chain, on different locations) LCA-like Relevant number of impact category endpoints Relevant type of analysis

Alternative type

EIA type

Goal and policy alternatives Process alternatives

Strategic

Strategic, Project

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Abatement alternatives Location alternatives

Project

Location

Traditional EIA LCA-like Traditional EIA LCA-like Traditional EIA

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been achieved at the expense of environmental deterioration at other locations, in other time frames, or on other impact categories. Neither the EU EIA Directive nor the Dutch EIA Decree explicitly covers effects that are indirectly induced by a change in production processes at locations other than that of the primary activity. However, they certainly do not exclude them either. Indeed, one could probably successfully argue that such inducedeffects could be regarded as indirect effects, as mentioned in Annex IV of the EIA Directive. For a fair comparison of alternatives, a complete set of impacts must be analyzed, and all processes causing effects that are relevant in the comparison, including those at other locations and in other links of the chain, must be taken into account. And that is just what LCA does. 3.4. Examples of the use of LCA in EIA or EIA-like studies There has been relatively extensive experience with the use of LCA in EIAs in The Netherlands. This may have to do with the fact that strategic EIAs, in which LCA can be applied, are quite common in The Netherlands. The following are examples of the use of LCA in Dutch EIAs or EIAlike studies:8 1. Case 1: Dutch National (Hazardous) Waste Management Plans (policy alternative): the Dutch National Waste Management Plan makes decisions on the conguration of end-treatment techniques for waste (landll, incineration and separation/fermentation). The alternatives concerned are location independent. A rough form of LCA was used to evaluate options in the EIA of the rst plan [4]. In the EIA of the second waste management plan, the CML methodology for LCA was applied to compare alternative planning options [5]. Similarly, LCA was applied in the EIA of the 1997 Dutch National Hazardous Waste Management Plan [36,38]. 2. Case 2: Dutch electricity plan (policy alternative): the Dutch electricity plan makes decisions on the electricity production structure in The Netherlands. No formal LCA was used, but quite a few examples of LCAs of electricity show that this is a feasible and logical option. 3. Case 3: Waste treatment plants (process alternative): given decisions on prevention and reuse in a waste management plan, a choice had to be made on the end treatment of incinerable waste. This can basically be seen as a process alternative: in this situation the alternatives were incineration and separation/fermentation. A LCA of incineration versus separation/fermentation was carried out as preparation
8 The examples given here are mainly based on the practical experience of the author with EIA, and hence, mainly concentrate on The Netherlands. Without doubt, many examples are available from other countries with extensive experience with EIA, such as the US, Sweden, and the UK.

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for EIA [31]. A similar LCA approach has been used to compare the environmental benets of two process alternatives for domestic waste and industrial waste: a separation unit followed by reuse, incineration of Refuse Derived Fuel and bioreactor landll of organic waste versus integrated incineration [41]. 4. Case 4: Oil desulphurization plant (process alternative): one of the biggest reneries in Holland built a hydrogenation/desulphurization plant that was subject to an obligatory EIA. One of the positive consequences of this plant was that it produces oil with a relatively low sulphur content (leading to less SO2 emissions by the users) and enables it to use high-sulphur resources. The effects on acidication of the plant itself may be outweighed by less acidication by consumers of products, and the process is also preferable from the perspective of squandering. In the EIA, these advantages were indicated, without quantication [8]. A system approach and impact assessment of LCA would have been a suitable means to quantify these inuences. 5. Case 5: Flue gas treatment (abatement alternative): an electricityproducing company wanted to compare options for ue gas treatment (SO2). This can be seen as an abatement alternative in EIA. It was carried out as a voluntary case study in the development of the TNO methodology on integrated chain management, which uses an LCAlike approach for the environmental evaluation of alternatives [10].

4. Conclusions This paper has shown that there is no fundamental contradiction between EIA and LCA. The main difference is that LCA is mainly used as a fairly detailed tool for a specic type of comparison, i.e., of alternative product systems. EIA deals with a broader set of comparisons, and seems to put slightly more emphasis on the organization of the process of decision making. Nevertheless, in both LCA and EIA procedures the environmental impacts related to activities in a specic societal (sub)system have to be evaluated. The building blocks (choice of the system boundaries and impact assessment) do not fundamentally differ. Because EIA procedures deal with a rather broad type of comparison, the system choice and impact assessment cannot be dened in a detailed way: they depend entirely on the specic EIA. In traditional project EIAs, which are the most common type, the system chosen is usually conned to a single industrial plant, and impact assessment is usually concentrated on the effects on the direct surroundings. LCA is designed to compare the impacts related to a central product function. Hence, the whole system (or Ecological Ru cksack) related to that product function is included, and the impact assessment is generic and time and location independent. A second argument in this paper is that applying a LCA-like comparison

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of alternatives in EIA may be more useful than is often thought. In traditional project EIAs, process and abatement alternatives usually play a role. Obviously, such alternatives may have different direct impacts on the surrounding environment, which are normally covered in traditional EIAs. Yet, it may well be that such alternatives also differ in their Ecological Ru cksacks. In that case, an LCA-like system approach, which takes into account all relevant effects, is necessary for an honest comparison. Only then does the EIA truly take into account all indirect effects, asin my viewis demanded by Annex IV of the EU EIA directive.

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