This page gives access to material that relates to my work on the computational structure of LCA:

• History
• Some recent developments
• Future
• Errata
• Links
• The press
• Feedback

My work on matrix algebra in LCA started in 1991, right when I started to work on LCA. Since then, I have published some articles on this:

• Ecological Economics, 1994, 69-81
• Journal of Cleaner Production, 1996, 159-166
• International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 1998, 321-332 (with Rolf Frischknecht)

Also, my PhD-thesis

• Economic Drama and the Environmental Stage, Leiden University, 1997
• (available as A Theory of the Environment and Economic Systems, Edward Elgar, 2001)

contains a synthesis of this material. However, it is not directly focussed on LCA. My book

• The Computational Structure of Life Cycle Assessment, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002 (with Sangwon Suh)

does provide such an LCA-directed synthesis.

Some papers that expand on my book The Computational Structure are:

• Generalized make and use framework for allocation in life cycle assessment. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2010, 335-353 (with Sangwon Suh, Bo Weidema and Jannick Schmidt)
• Sensitivity coefficients for matrix-based LCA. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 2010, 511-520
• Power series expansion and structural analysis for life cycle assessment. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 2007, 381-390 (with Sangwon Suh)
• Toward an information tool for integrated product policy. Requirements for data and computation. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2006, 147-158 (with Arjan de Koning, Sangwon Suh and Gjalt Huppes)
• Reformulation of matrix-based LCI: from product balance to process balance. Journal of Cleaner Production, 2006), 47-51 (with Sangwon Suh)
• Numerical approaches to life cycle interpretation. The case of the Ecoinvent'96 database. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 2005, 103-112 (with Sangwon Suh and René Kleijn)
• Representing statistical distributions for uncertain parameters in LCA. Relationships between mathematical forms, their representation in EcoSpold, and their representation in CMLCA. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 2005, 248-254. (with Rolf Frischknecht)
• Numerical approaches to life-cycle interpretation. Five examples. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 2001, 141-148 (with René Kleijn)
• The use of matrix perturbation theory for addressing sensitivity and uncertainty issues in LCA. In: Proceedings of The Fifth International Conference on EcoBalance - Practical tools and thoughtful principles for sustainability. 6-8 November 2002, Tsukuba, Japan. The Society of Non-Traditional Technology, 2002, Tokyo, Japan.

What will happen next? I foresee the following:

• A second revised edition of the book may be prepared, possibly broadened to cover IO-based and hybrid LCA, as well as LCC
• A book on the use of matrix-oriented LCA-software (CMLCA) may be prepared
• Further developments may be published as separate articles
• New developments may find their way in new releases of CMLCA.

Anyhow, since the publication of The Computational Structure in 2002, many of the newer developments (hybrid LCA, LCC) have been incorporated into CMLCA.

There is a document (last update: 15 April 2005) with errata. You may notify new ones. Pascal Lesage (CIRAIG, École Polytechnique de Montréal) provided valuable comments.

Important links are:

• Springer's webpage of the book
• PDF of Table of Contents & Introduction
• Some Matlab script files
• CMLCA (a matrix based program for LCA)
• Distributions (a document and program to translate several representations of uncertainty information)

Announcements and reviews of The Computational Structure are in:

• International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
• Journal of Industrial Ecology

I appreciate your feedback:

• suggestions
• additions
• corrections
• critical comments
• appraisal
• etc.

Please communicate your opinion.

 

 

 

 

Last modified on
previous page	CML	CML-IE	top page