okala.pdf

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

1/42

Okala Impact FactorsNorth American single-figure process values

for impact assessment

Philip WhiteAssistant Professor, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University

Chair, Ecodesign Section, Industrial Designers Society of America

2007 InLCA Conference, Portland Oregon USA October 2007

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

2/42

Okala Impact FactorsNorth American single-figure process valuesfor impact assessment

Motivations

Structure of Okala assessment methodology

Process input/output inventory data

Heuristic applications

Needs of system developers

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

3/42

Motivations

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

4/42

Motivations for Okala Impact Factors

The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA)supports the Design Professions to become more

ecologically responsible.

We worked within the IDSA/EPA Partnership,administered through the EPA Design forEnvironment Office, to develop applied LCA methods

for the Design profession.

Okala means life-giving energyin indigenous Hopilanguage; it honors indigenous wisdom about theintegral relationship between humans and the naturalworld.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

5/42

Motivations for Okala Impact Factors The environmental performance of products and systems is determined

early in the design process. Therefore, Product Development Teams and

designers need comprehensive Lifecycle Assessment methods that arefast and easy to use.

The methods should minimize data uncertainties while offering a widerange of materials and processes required by the product development

processes of various industries.

North American enterprises prefer a North American LCA methodology.

The LCA method would be used inside companies, not for public

assertions.

The method should be applicable in educating designers, engineersand business managers about applied LCA.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

6/42

Structure of Okala

assessment methodology

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

7/42

Structure of Okalaassessment methodology

Single figure score values are faster and easier to use than multi-attribute scores, especially for complex systems that include manymaterials and processes.

Process LCA inventory data is increasingly available for a diverse

range of materials and processes that design teams use. Recently developed North American characterization methods,

normalization data and weighting values are available.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

8/42

Structure of Okalaassessment methodology

The Okala impact factors use the following LCA components:

Characterization: TRACI 1

Normalization: US EPA 2

Weighting: NIST 3

1. Bare, J ane, et al, The Tool of reduction and Assessment of Chemical and other EnvironmentalImpacts (TRACI),J ournal of Industrial Ecology, Volume 6, number 3-4, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002

2. Bare, J ane, Gloria, Tom, and Norris, Greg, Development of the Method and U.S. NormalizationDatabase for Life Cycle Assessment and Sustainability Metrics, Environmental Science and

Technology, Vol. 40, NO. 16, 2006

3. Lippiatt, Bobbie, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Presentation of BEES draftweighting values, InLCA Conference, Washington DC, 2006

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

9/42

Okala impact categories

Okala employs the 2006 version of

TRACI, which no longer includeshabitat alteration. It splitshuman cancerand human non-

cancer health effects which werepreviously combined in one category.

Okala refers to this last category ashuman toxici ty, and refers to theTRACI criteria air pollutants categoryas human respiratory.

Okala excludes indoor air pollut ionbecause it involves double-counting.

Okala excludes water use becausethere is not an effective global

characterization method for thisregionally defined impact category.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

10/42

Why use normalization for Okala?

We use normalization values

(developed by the US EPA)because this harmonizes thedivergent units of each of theimpact categories.

Once the impacts from the differentcategories are in similar units(unit-free) they are summed todeliver a single figure score.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

11/42

Why use weighting for Okala?

By using weights of equal value

(not weighting) we do not avoid thesubjectivity that is associated withweighting. Deciding to use equalweighting of each impact categoryis as subjective a decision as

assigning unequal weighting values.

Okala weighting values weredeveloped by NIST. NIST is arecognized US authority on science

and technology; the NISTnormalization values are the mostlegitimate values for the TRACImethod that are currently available.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

12/42

Okalaprocess input/output

inventory data

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

13/42

Okala inventory data selection criteria

Criteria for selecting process input/output inventory data:

1. North American electricity data (amended to include CO2 emissions)

2. Most detailed and thoroughly documented data (usually Ecoinvent data)

3. One data source for families of materials or processes will be compared to eachother (example: landfill and incineration data, Ecoinvent)

4. If data sets had equal levels of detail, North American data preferred

5. Sole source data for material or process data requested by designers,

even if with a low level of detailed documentation.

6. Timeframe is large, 1980 2005

7. ISystemboundaries exclude 4th and higher order impacts: production ofmanufacturing equipment, construction of factories or transportation infrastructures

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

14/42

Okala inventory data sources

155

15

24

982

8 814

EcoinventEcoinvent+

Delft U.

BUWALFranklin

Franklin+

OrbPre'

APME

US LCI+ amended

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

15/42

Okala Impact Factor materials and processes

polymers

polymer processing

metals

metal processing

ceramics

plant, animal products

paper + print

fuels

other materials

power

transport

incineration

landfill

Okala impactfactors were

developed for

230 materials

and processes.

We also offerglobal warmingpotentials of eachof these in CO2

equivalencies.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

16/42

New materials and processes www.idsa.org/whatsnew/sections/ecosection

Okala impactfactors weredeveloped for230 materialsand processes.

2004 Survey of Practicing Designers

95 practicing product designers reported thatthe they needed factors for the followingmaterials and processes. We locatedinventory data for these and include them in

the 2007 Okala Impact Factors.

fiberboard particleboard

carbon fiber epoxy

glass-filled nylon acrylicTitanium detergent

local water imported water

Aluminum forging Aluminum casting

powder coating Li-ion batteries

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

17/42

Amended inventory data

Recycled thermoplastics

Ecoinvent did not offer data for recycled thermoplastics.Franklin data, which was of a lower quality, did offerrecycled thermoplastics data,

The Okala inventory data for recycled plastics was madeby taking the difference between the Franklin primary andsecondary thermoplastic data and subtracting that fromthe respective Ecoinvent thermoplastic data.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

18/42

Economically extrapolated impact factors

Gold and Silver

The Okala Impact Factors for Gold were extrapolated and for silverwere extrapolated from the Okala Impact Factors of Palladium andPlatinum. March 2007 prices for all of these precious metals were usedfor this extrapolation. The factors are rounded to two significant figures.

Platinum Gold Palladium Silver

US$ / lb. 16000 8500 400 200

impact factor millipoints / lb. 260,000 200,000 140,000 140,000

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

19/42

Economic allocation

Some materials had multiple products, so we used economicallocation to proportion the share of lifecycle impact to the share

of economic value of the various products.

J eroen B. Guine, ReinoutHeijungs and Gjalt Huppes,Economic Allocation: Examplesand Derived Decision Tree,International J ournal of LCA,(1) 23 33 (2004)

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

20/42

Economic allocation

Sheep wool

Inventory data (US LCI database) for theentire lifecycle of a sheep showedsurprisingly high from methane productionwith subsequent global warming effects.

Economic data indicated that over thelifecycle of a wool producing sheep, muttoncomprises roughly 2/3 of the economicvalue and wool comprises 1/3.

The Okala Impact Factor for wool was thusestimated to be 1/3 of the impacts of theentire sheep over its lifecycle.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

21/42

By-product non-allocation

Bovine leather

Inventory data (Delft U.) for production ofbovine leather only included the emissions fromprocessing the leather after butchering. Thedata implied that that beef would be produced

regardless of the economic value of the leather,(that leather is a by-product), so economicallocation is unnecessary.

The by-product opt-outrule for not using

economic allocation is inconsistent. We needconsistent allocation rules that apply equally toall products and systems.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

22/42

Processes recommended to avoid

We took an editorial stance that the following materialsshould be avoided by system and product developers:

Nickel-Cadmium batteries

Water from underground aquifers that are dropping

Natural rubber from non-sustainable certified sources

Tropical wood from non-sustainable certified sources

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

23/42

Unexpected results: municipal landfill

The following materials had considerably larger impactsin municipal landfills than in production. These large(X8) impacts are from ecotoxicity, human toxicity andhuman cancer.

Okala Impact millipoints/lb

material Production Landfill

Aluminum, primary 130 1000

Cardboard, primary, unbleached 10 85

Paper, primary, bleached 11 36

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

24/42

Unexpected results: municipal incineration

Okala Impact millipoints/lb

material Production Incineration

Aluminum, primary 130 860Copper, primary 320 5600

Lead, primary 5200 150000

steel, primary 25 210

LDPE, HDPE, GPS, PP 10 ~13 20

EPS 17 23

The following materials had considerably larger impactsin municipal incinerators than in production. Theselarge impacts are also from ecotoxicity, human toxicityand human cancer. Impacts from dioxin production in the

incineration process were surprisingly small.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

25/42

Heuristic applications

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

26/42

OkalaModules areorganized in

four sections.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

27/42

Okala curricula:

Course guide64 page full-color guide for students

19 module presentationsIn PowerPoint

Instructors guidePractical advice for each module

Used in more than 50 collegesof design in North America

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

28/42

LCA for industrial designers

Teaching objectives:

1. Quickly teach students to understandhow to model ecological performance,

and understand how key variablesdirectly affect ecological performance

2. Sequentially work on more complexprojects to understand more complex

applications and comparisons

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

29/42

LCA for design students

1st assignment:

Bill of materials provided

We supply the bill of materials fora product with packaging, includingpower usage and functional unit.Students estimate product lifetime

(total hrs. of system use) andcomplete the assessment in Okalaimpact millipoints/ hour of use.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

30/42

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

31/42


2nd assignment:

Redesign existing system

Students disassemble a product such

as a hand-tool, and create a bill ofmaterials from scratch for the referenceassessment.

As with the previous assignment, they

redesign the system to explore ways toimprove its ecological performance.

They explore the most appropriatefunctional unit for this assessment.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

32/42


3rd assignment:

Compare to combined systems

By researching trends in behavior and

technology, students design newsystems that do not have obviousprecedents. To enable a comparativeassessment, students construct a

competitor product to assess, oftenby combining dissimilar systems.

Assessmentof this monitor

conceptrequired thecomparisonto a combinedhandheld PDA

and a bedsidemonitor.

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

33/42

Needs of systemdevelopers

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

34/42

Developer information needs

There are yet many processes requested

by the 2004 designers survey for whichwe seek process inventory data to makeOkala Impact Factors:

Indian electr icity Chinese electr icity

PLA-plastic recycled nylon fabric

bio-diesel cellulosic ethanol

corn ethanol Ni-metal hydride bat.

marble electronic components

granite open-air incineration

cattle low-quality land-fills

silicone rubber electronic componentsbamboo

www.idsa.org/whatsnew/sections/ecosection

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

35/42

Okala Impact Factor materials and processes

polymers

polymer processing

metals

metal processing

ceramics


paper + print

fuels

other materials

power

transport

incineration

landfill

Okala impact

factors for 230materials andprocesses

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

36/42

Lack of data on incineration

polymers

polymer processing

metals

metal processing

ceramics


paper + print

fuels

other materials

power

transport

incineration

landfill

We lack incinerationdata for the 75% of

burnable materials

that we haveproduction data for.

Materials that can be incinerated

Materials for which wehave incineration data

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

37/42

Lack of data on land-filling

polymers

polymer processing

metals

metal processing

ceramics


paper + print

fuels

other materials

power

transport

incineration

landfill

We lack land-fil l

data for the 85%

of materials thatwe have production

data for.

Materials that can be landfilled.

Materials for which we

have land-fill data

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

38/42

2008 Funding Priorities

National ScienceFoundation

$6.4 bil lion

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

39/42


$6.4 bil lion

EnvironmentalProtection Agency

$7.2 billion


7/27/2019 okala.pdf

40/42


$6.4 billion $7.2 billion

Process InventoryData Research

0

EnvironmentalProtection Agency


7/27/2019 okala.pdf

41/42

Okala Impact FactorsNorth American single-figure process valuesfor impact assessment

Improve Okala assessment methodology

Expand the range of materials and processes

Refine methods to teach LCA to system developers

Okala design guide

7/27/2019 okala.pdf

42/42

Special thanks to:

J ane Bare of the US EPA

and Michiel Oele of PreConsultancy, NL

Philip White

Assistant Professor

College of Design and School of Sustainability

Arizona State University

[email protected]

O aa desg gude

www.idsa.org/whatsnew/sections/ecosection

okala.pdf

Documents