Getting the chemicals right: addressing inorganics in sustainability assessments of technologies
Abstract
A main goal of sustainability research is to enable a technological development in industry and elsewhere that ensures that what is produced and how it is produced today does not harm the quality of human or environmental health for present and future generations. As part of current environmental sustainability assessments, the toxicity potential of several thousand organic chemicals is included in characterization models within life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). However, many economic production processes involve the use of inorganic chemicals to a large extent, while the related pressure on human and environmental health of environmental emissions of these substances is not yet fully understood and not included in any existing LCIA method. In th is presentation, we provide an overview of the relevance of inorganic chemicals and outline possible ways towards incorporating inorganic chemicals in LCIA toxicity characterization.
Info
Conference Abstract, 2016
UN SDG Classification
DK Main Research Area
Science/Technology
