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Integrating a life‐cycle assessment with NEPA: Does it make sense?
Author(s) -
Eccleston Charles H.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
environmental quality management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.249
H-Index - 27
eISSN - 1520-6483
pISSN - 1088-1913
DOI - 10.1002/tqem.3310080306
Subject(s) - national environmental policy act , standardization , iso 14000 , life cycle assessment , charter , environmental planning , environmental impact assessment , engineering , risk analysis (engineering) , environmental resource management , business , environmental science , political science , environmental management system , economics , law , ecology , macroeconomics , production (economics) , irrigation , biology
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 provides the basic national charter for protection of the environment in the United States. Today NEPA provides an environmental policy model, emulated by nations around the world. Recently, questions have been raised regarding the appropriateness and under what conditions it makes sense to combine the preparation of a NEPA analysis with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ISO 14000 standards for Life‐Cycle Assessment (LCA). This article advances a decision‐making tool consisting of six discrete factors for use in determining when it is appropriate to perform an integrated NEPA/LCA analysis. Properly applied, this tool should reduce the risk that an LCA may be inappropriately prepared and integrated with a NEPA analysis.© 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.