Life-Cycle Assessment and Human Health: The ILSI Feasibility Analysis, 1996 Life Cycle Assessment Symposium Proceedings

W. Owens

The Proctor & Gamble Company

One conceptual goal of life-cycle assessment (LCA) is to conduct an assessment of how resource use and emissions of a system may potentially affect human health. This goal has not as yet received a high level of technical attention within the LCA community. The Health and Environmental Science Institute (HESI), therefore, recruited a panel composed of experts in human and animal toxicology, risk assessment, environmental fate models, and LCA to provide assistance to the LCA community. The panel was charged to consider and to comment on the relationship of LCA and human health assessment. Panel comments were equested on possible life-cycle assessment procedures and methods: (1) the construction of impact categories in the area of human health, (2) the merits of various models to rank toxicological hazard, (3) other available means to add perspective on the exposure potential of emitted substances such as multimedia models, and (4) the proposition to aggregate or add the toxicity of substances both within and across toxicological endpoints. The panel completed a draft report, including conclusions and recommendations, in mid-December, 1995. The presentation will review the panel observations with the important caution that completion of the panel process and report is still pending the panel’s response to HESI technical committee comments and questions.