![[logo] US EPA](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090510032956im_/http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/images/logo_epaseal.gif){kind=logo}
How Life-cycle Assessment (LCA) Can Help You
Interested in learning more about life-cycle assessment? RSVP now for the January 26th teleseminar from 12-1 Eastern. Contact Luctrician Hamilton at 202-566-2867 or hamilton.luctrician@epa.gov.
Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool for holistically assessing the environmental impacts of a product, process or activity. Often product-based, LCAs are conducted to benchmark or compare environmental impacts, beginning with the extraction of materials from the earth, followed by manufacture, use, and end-of-life disposition of a product.
However, life-cycle thinking can also play a role in helping facilities understand the life-cycle implications of their activities. Not only do facilities have influence over their own activities, but they can also affect environmental improvement through influences beyond their facilities. From a facility perspective, goals toward environmental improvement can be achieved through direct facility actions as well as through interactions both upstream (e.g., via suppliers) and downstream (e.g., via customers or EOL service providers).
Join us to learn more about life-cycle assessment and to hear more about how life-cycle thinking can be applied to environmental improvement goals.
The Speaker
Maria Leet Socolof is a Senior Scientist with Abt Associates where she works in the areas of life-cycle analysis, cleaner production, design for environment, environmentally preferable products and purchasing, industrial ecology, and human health impact assesments. She has 16 years of experience in the environmental field and has been working in the area of life-cycle assessment for the last 7 years. She continues to conduct research for EPA's Design for the Environment (DfE) Program, which she did for the past 7 years at the University of Tennessee's Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies. Prior to that, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, she managed environmental impact analyses under the National Environmental Policy Act and provided technical expertise and research on public and occupational human health risks. Earlier in her career, she supported EPA programs related to pollution prevention, solid and hazardous waste, air, and water programs as a consultant.
Ms. Socolof has published papers and given numerous presentations on LCA, particularly as related to the EPA's DfE Program projects (e.g., Computer Display Project and Lead-Free Solder Project). Among other activities, she was invited to participate as an LCA expert on the Development Team for the Electronics Product Environmental Assessment Tool and on a technical committee for the Suppliers Partnership for the Environment in the automotive industry. She holds a B.A. cum laude in Human Ecology/Environmental Studies from Connecticut College and an M.S. in Environmental Health Mangement from the Harvard School of Public Health.
The Presentation
"Life-cycle
Assessment and Life-cycle Thinking for Performance
Track Members" (PPT, 237 KB, 18pp)
"Life-cycle
Assessment and Life-cycle Thinking for Performance
Track Members"
(PDF, 138
KB, 18pp)
Text of
"Life-cycle Assessment and Life-cycle Thinking for
Performance Track Members" (TXT, 7 KB)