Mediaspace scheduled maintenance: Aug 25, 2026 07:00 - 12:00 AM. During this time, videos will be temporarily unavailable. Check status updates.

Lecture

Life Cycle Assessment: Methodology and Impact Analysis

In course

ENV-370: Environmental system analysis and assessment

Les enjeux environnementaux doivent être abordés de façon systémique. L'Analyse du Cycle de Vie (ACV) et l'Analyse de Flux de Matière (AFM) sont des méthodes permettant d'évaluer de façon globale les performances environnementales des produits, des service ...

Description

This lecture covers the methodology and impact analysis of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), including course planning, allocation for co-products, distribution of impacts, energy comparisons, and evolution of electricity mixes. It also delves into the primary energy balance, resource impact assessment, and unit damage categories in LCA.

This video is available exclusively on Mediaspace for a restricted audience. Please log in to MediaSpace to access it if you have the necessary permissions.

Watch on Mediaspace

Instructors (3)

Jérôme Payet

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer

Claudia R. Binder, a Swiss, Canadian and Colombian citizen, was born in Montreal and spent most of her childhood in Switzerland and Colombia. She studied at ETH Zurich from 1985 to 1996, earning a degree in biochemistry and then a PhD in environmental sciences. After conducting her post-doctoral research at the University of Maryland in the US from 1996 to 1998, she returned to Switzerland and took a position as a senior research scientist at ETH Zurich, studying the interaction between human and environmental systems at the Institute for Natural and Social Science Interface. In 2006, Binder joined the University of Zurich as an assistant professor in the Department of Geography, and in 2009 moved to the University of Graz in Austria where she served as a full professor of systems science. In 2011, she took a position at the University of Munich’s Department of Geography as a full professor of human-environment relations. Binder joined EPFL in March 2016 and set up the Laboratory for Human-Environment Relations in Urban Systems (HERUS) at ENAC; she also holds the La Mobilière Chair on Urban Ecology and Sustainable Living. Her research involves analyzing, modelling and assessing the transition of urban systems towards sustainability. She looks in particular at how we can better understand the dynamics of urban metabolism, what characterizes a sustainable city, and what drives and hinders transformation processes. She does so by combining knowledge from social, natural and data science. Her research focuses on food, energy, and sustainable living and transport in urban systems. In Switzerland, Binder was appointed to the Research Council, Programs Division of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) in 2016 and serves on the Steering Committee of the SNSF’s National Research Program 71, “Managing Energy Consumption” and the Swiss Competence Centers for Energy Research (SCCER). She is also a member of the Steering Board on Sustainability Research for the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences. In 2019, she was elected as a member of the University Council of the University of Munich (LMU). At EPFL, Binder is the academic director of Design Together, a cross-disciplinary teaching initiative. She was appointed to the management team of the Energy Center in 2018 and as head of the working group on EPFL’s energy and sustainability strategy in 2019.

Aristide Henri Roger Athanassiadis

Aristide has a joint-PhD in Urbanism from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and The University of Melbourne on the topic of comprehensive urban environmental assessments. Since 2018, he was co-Chair of Circular Economy and Urban Metabolism at the Université Libre de Bruxelles where he advised local administrations on the regional circular economy plan and facilitated exchanges between researchers, policy makers and practitioners in order to develop projects that helped Brussels' economy and metabolism transition towards a more circular state. During the last years, he has collaborated and worked with/for several universities, research centres, environmental administrations, NGOs, youth organisations and consultancy firms on a great variety of projects around the topics of urban metabolism and circular economy. Finally, Aristide co-created the non-profit organisation and open-source initiative Metabolism of Cities (www.metabolismofcities.org) that aims to bring to create, share and apply urban metabolism knowledge, in policy and practice.

Official source

Related concepts (32)

Energy conservation

Energy conservation is the effort to reduce wasteful energy consumption by using fewer energy services. This can be done by using energy more effectively (using less energy for continuous service) or changing one's behavior to use less service (for example, by driving less). Energy conservation can be achieved through efficient energy use, which has some advantages, including a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a smaller carbon footprint, as well as cost, water, and energy savings.

Energy audit

An energy audit is an inspection survey and an analysis of energy flows for energy conservation in a building. It may include a process or system to reduce the amount of energy input into the system without negatively affecting the output. In commercial and industrial real estate, an energy audit is the first step in identifying opportunities to reduce energy expense and carbon footprint. When the object of study is an occupied building then reducing energy consumption while maintaining or improving human comfort, health and safety are of primary concern.

House Energy Rating

The House Energy Rating (HER) or House Energy Rating Scheme (HERS) are worldwide standard measures of comparison by which one can evaluate the energy efficiency of a new or an existing building. The comparison is generally done for energy requirements for heating and cooling of indoor space. The energy is the main criterion considered by any international building energy rating scheme but there are some other important factors such as production of greenhouse gases emission, indoor environment quality, cost efficiency and thermal comfort, which are considered by some schemes.

Zero-energy building

A Zero-Energy Building (ZEB), also known as a Net Zero-Energy (NZE) building, is a building with net zero energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site or in other definitions by renewable energy sources offsite, using technology such as heat pumps, high efficiency windows and insulation, and solar panels. The goal is that these buildings contribute less overall greenhouse gas to the atmosphere during operations than similar non-ZNE buildings.

Life-cycle assessment

Life cycle assessment or LCA (also known as life cycle analysis) is a methodology for assessing environmental impacts associated with all the stages of the life cycle of a commercial product, process, or service. For instance, in the case of a manufactured product, environmental impacts are assessed from raw material extraction and processing (cradle), through the product's manufacture, distribution and use, to the recycling or final disposal of the materials composing it (grave).

Related lectures (44)

Energy Efficiency in Industry MOOC: SES Swiss-Energyscope

Explores energy efficiency in industry, covering final energy consumption, industrial sectors, technology efficiency, heat demand, re-use, and primary energy sources.

Exergy Analysis in Energy Systems

Explores exergy analysis in energy systems, emphasizing energy performance, waste streams, and efficiency optimization.

Energy Savings in Buildings MOOC: SES Swiss-Energyscope

Explores energy savings in buildings through passive measures and the Swiss energy transition, emphasizing the importance of building renovation and passive solar energy.

The Basics of Fusion Energy

Introduces fusion energy basics, covering plasma generation, fusion reactions, and environmental advantages of fusion energy.

Energy System Overview: Forms, Services, and Transformations