This report describes the functionality of the lifecycle assessment (LCA) screening tool used as guidance during the development of fire protection systems in the LASH FIRE project. A more comprehensive description of the LCA screening tool is presented in deliverable D05.5.
The excel® spreadsheet-based LCA screening tool is comprised of fire models, output from SimaPro® LCA software, and scaling calculations. The fire models provide data about the type and amount of fire effluents going to the air as smoke and to surface water as fire water run-off. The SimaPro® output is in terms of these environmental impact categories: Fine particulate matter formation, Freshwater ecotoxicity, Global warming, and Marine ecotoxicity. The calculations within the LCA screening tool are used to scale the results so that they can be compared graphically.
The results are presented in bar graphs showing the total impacts, normalized to the highest impact in each category, which are provided next to the input area so that users can interactively see how the impacts change with new input. Detailed results are presented on a separate worksheet so that users can see both the numerical results and the graphical results showing the relative contributions from manufacturing, installation, use, end of life, fire emissions, and fire response to the overall impacts in each category. All the other worksheets in the tool are hidden and protected so that the calculations cannot accidentally be corrupted.
Read the full report here.