DF 72 — Normalization and weighting. The forgotten theme in LCA. 

Monday, 9 September, 2019, ETH Zürich, Alumni (GEP) Pavillon 

We cordially invite you to the 72nd Discussion Forum on Life Cycle Assessment.
The official language of this event is English. 

To draw the right conclusions based on environmental indicators can be a challenging task due to the consideration of a broad variety of environmental impacts that show diverging results. Many LCA practitioners seek help in interpreting diverging results in different impact categories by applying single score LCIA methods. But the ISO standards do not support weighting for publishing comparative LCA. Nevertheless, the increasing need for unequivocal results lead to the development of single score impact assessment method.

This forum aims to provide a fertile ground for discussion between LCA researchers, practitioners and other people interested in the interpretation and development of normalization and weighting methods.

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Call for short presentations:

DF 73 — Digital transformation: LCA of digital services, multifunctional devices and cloud data centres.

Thursday, November 21, 2019, ZHAW Wädenswil (not ETH Zürich)

(The official language of this event is English.)

Increasing digitalisation not only makes our daily life easier but also causes changes in the environmental impact of our activities. The substitution of material-based services with digital services – for example films or music – alters the environmental impact of our everyday activities and shifts visible material use to less visible digital services. 

A holistic LCA of the transformation from material to digital services requires the assessment of information and communication technology (ICT) and takes into account new business models as well as emerging technologies. Modelling of digital services and multifunctional devices are complex and the choice of assumptions has a crucial impact on the final assessment. 

A discussion of all these topics in the LCA-community allows the evaluation of different approaches for the assessment of digital transformation.

This DF will therefore cover the LCA of transformation to a digital society with its wide range of devices and technologies as well as summation effects caused by new services enabled by modern ICT.
 

DF 75 — Life Cycle Thinking = Lower Footprint?

Monday & Tuesday, September 14 & 15, 2020 (2 day jubilee forum), Zürich

If we compare the necessary large transformations (e.g. in GHG reductions, or land use patterns) with common LCAs, the question arises: Did LCA hitherto support big decisions and changes? Or are we using LCA mostly for minuscule optimizations? We're eagerly awaiting your abstracts for presentations and posters which answer one (or many) of these questions: 
   • How much does (did) LCA really help in reducing pressure on the environment? 
   • Which important decisions were based on LC thinking and analysis?
   • How can LCA become more effective for big issues?

Submissions can be either scientific or 'practical' (e.g. from industrial practitioners without scientific endeavour). Key is to discuss the topics.  

We look forward to your abstracts, to be submitted until January, 10th, 2020, to: (this link follows soon).