Purpose From a methodological point of view, life cycle costing (LCC) is well developed with respect to conventional costs. However, when it comes to costs related to environmental issues, neither the items nor their estimation have been well developed. This paper aims at investigating the possibilities of using life cycle assessment (LCA) results to identify and estimate environmental costs or benefits in an LCC. Design/methodology/approach The paper begins by looking at the driving forces for introducing environmental costs in companies, continues by identifying external and internal environmental cost issues, and concludes with an attempt to estimate the internal costs. Findings Some of the items of an LCC have to do with increased/decreased sales, others with good will. Both are difficult to estimate, but LCA or LCA‐like investigations may be helpful in identifying relevant issues. Future costs to the product system may also be estimated, for example, with a distance‐to‐target type of weighting. LCA may be helpful in roughly estimating risks, especially together with those LCA impact assessment methods that model damage. Such an item in LCC can be dealt with as an insurance fee or, if the risk is too high, as a way of including necessary preventive actions. Research limitations/implications The literature on the subject is limited and not sufficient to aid in estimation of environmental costs and benefits for a company. It seems reasonable to begin an improvement of the methodology by looking at future costs and benefits. Practical implications This paper may help in structuring the task of using LCA information for estimating environmental costs in LCC. Originality/value There has been increased interest recently in the integration of LCA and LCC, such as in the SETAC (Society for Ecotoxicology and Chemistry) working group on LCC. This paper contributes with new outlooks and structures for that work.
This study deals with some methods of making human exposure estimates, aimed at describing the human exposure for selected air pollutants in Sweden that are suspected carcinogens.Nitrogen oxides (NOX) have been chosen as an indicator substance for estimating the concentration of the urban plume.Earlier investigations have shown that the traffic in Swedish cities contributes around 85% to the measured NOx concentrations, and that most of the mutagenicity in urban air originates from traffic.The first section of this paper describes measurements in Stockholm of some unregulated light hydrocarbons, such as ethene, ethyne, propane, propene, butane, and isobutane.In addition, measurements of some volatile aro- matic hydrocarbons are presented.Simultaneous measurements of carbon monoxide (CO) were made.The ratios between CO and the individual specific compounds were determined by linear regression analysis.By analysis of relationships between CO and NO X, NO concentrations can be used as a tracer to describe the exposure for these specific compounds.NOX are considered to be a better tracer than CO, because NOX or NO2 values exist for many places over a long time, while CO is measured mostly in streets with high concentrations.At low concentrations, instruments that measure normal CO levels give no detectable signals.Through use of atmospheric dispersion models and models that describe how people live and work in urban areas it has been possible to describe the average exposure to NOx in cities of different sizes.The exposure to NOx for people liv- ing in the countryside has also been estimated.In this way, it has been possible to calculate the average exposure dose for NOX for the Swedish population.This figure is 23 pg/mi3.By use of the relationships between NOX and specific compounds the average dose has been calculated for the following compounds: polyaromatic compounds (PAH); ethene, propene, and butadiene; benzene, toluene, and xylene; formaldehyde and actaldehyde; nickel, chromium (VI), arsenic, and cadmium; asbestos; and silicon.
Life cycle costing (LCC) is applied as an assessment tool to estimate the entire cost of typically large-scale assets, for example, buildings and infrastructure objects with a considerably long serviceable life. LCC needs to consider and accumulate all types of cost, and since these occur at different times they are typically discounted to a common point in time. Environmental LCC is a specific type of LCC, which was designed to be aligned with the ISO 14040 standard for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and shares some key components with Environmental LCA to allow a consistent combination of both in one assessment. Societal LCC is another type of LCC, which includes externalities and attempts to provide a holistic assessment, thereby covering both economic and environmental aspects. For renewables, aspects such as feed-in tariffs and subsidies need to be considered in an LCC model. A case study for a combined heat and power plant is used to illustrate the application of Environmental LCC.
