Carbon Footprinting and Life Cycle Assessment for Corporate Decision-Making

Friday, January 30, 2009

8:30am - 5:00pm

Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

This workshop is intended for upper-level managers exploring the use of life cycle assessment for carbon footprinting and mid-level managers initiating life cycle assessment projects. The workshop objective is to introduce the theory and methods of carbon footprinting and life cycle assessment, and to demonstrate how to apply life cycle assessment to corporate decision-making.

Session One: Life Cycle Assessment and Carbon Footprinting – History and Overview

Life cycle assessment was first attempted as early as 1960’s. Through the 1990s, life cycle assessment developed into a formal approach for quantifying the environmental impacts of products and services. We will begin this workshop with a brief history and overview of life cycle assessment to lay the groundwork for the remaining time.

Session Two: Approaches and Tools for Carbon Footprinting and Life Cycle Assessment

Practitioners of life cycle assessment and carbon footprinting use two main approaches – process-based and input-output based. Often a combination of the two are used in a hybrid approach to take advantage of the best characteristics of the methods. We will present overviews of the theory and methods the two approaches and hybrid options, and will introduce software applications, GaBi and SimaPro, available for streamlining data collection and quantification of impacts. This session will demonstrate the Economic Input-Output – Life Cycle Assessment tool developed by Green Design Institute researchers. We will also identify how these approaches fit with certification programs such as ISO 1400, PAS 2050, and other emerging initiatives for product footprints.

Session Three: Life Cycle Assessment Case Studies for Carbon Footprinting

The Green Design Institute has worked with life cycle assessment projects for almost two decades. While LCAs encompass a broad list of environmental impacts, concern with energy and carbon emissions have been a large focus of recent efforts. We will share approaches and results from our past work and identify how life cycle assessment projects can assist decision-makers in materials selection, prioritizing targets for environmental emissions reductions, and benchmarking operations.

Green Design Institute Consortium Members can participate in the workshop at no charge. Cost for non-members is $1,000, or $1,600 for both this workshop and the Corporate Carbon Emissions Inventory workshop.

Overview of the Corporate Carbon Emissions Inventory Workshop