DF 53 – Uncertainty in Life Cycle Assessment: State of the art and practical challenges


ETH Zurich

Dear colleagues with an interest in Life Cycle Assessment,
We cordially invite you to the 53rd Discussion Forum on Life Cycle Assessment.
The official language of this event is English.

Although uncertainty has been an important topic in LCA since its beginnings, many LCAs omit uncertainty analysis entirely. This discussion forum will include some presentations on recent developments in LCA such as the revised pedigree matrix for Ecoinvent 3, and the consideration of correlated uncertainties, but its main focus would be on the practical challenges that prevent uncertainty analysis from being a routine step. Case studies will examine successes and failures of calculating, understanding, and reducing uncertainty.
The afternoon will also include panel and moderated small group discussions with the aim of producing an outlook paper for publication, and show how advanced uncertainty assessment improves the iterative process of LCA studies.

We look forward to meeting you in Zurich!
The organizers of Swiss LCA Discussion Forum DF53


Download:    DF53-Programme Uncertainty in LCA.pdf

Livestream / Videorecordings: The recordings of all presentations are published on the following platform: https://www.multimedia.ethz.ch/misc/lca/2013
All talks and discussions can be accessed individually.

As of October 30, 2013 it's foreseen that the animated PDF-Presentations will also be available here for download.

TimeTitleSpeakerAffiliation
8:30 Registration, coffee  
 Morning session  
9:00 Welcome and introduction  
9:15 Keynote 1:
Overcoming barriers to incorporating uncertainty in LCA
DF53-01 Gregory Keynote_1.pdf
Jeremy Gregory  MIT (USA) 
10:00 Keynote 2:
A protocol for approaching process data uncertainties in Life Cycle Inventory Analysis
DF53-02 Guinee Henriksson Keynote_2.pdf
Patrik Henriksson, Jeroen Guinée Leiden University (Netherlands) 
10:45 Coffee break  
11:15 Keynote 3:
Pedigree Matrix version 2: the challenges of empirical factors
DF53-03 Ciroth Keynote_3.pdf
Andreas Ciroth  GreenDelta (Germany) 
12:00 Effects of distribution choice on the modeling of LCI uncertainty
DF53-04_Muller.pdf
Stéphanie Muller  CIRAIG, Polytechnique Montréal (Canada) 
12:30 Lunch break  
 Afternoon session  
14:00 Methods for uncertainty propagation in LCA
DF53-05 Groen.pdf
Evelyne Groen Wageningen University (Netherlands) 
14:15 Uncertainty, variability and contribution-to-variance analysis: It's not just inventory data
DF53-06 Pfister.pdf
Stephan Pfister  ETH Zürich (Switzerland) 
14:30 Group activities:
identification of key challenges for uncertainty research and communication
  
15:30 Coffee break  
16:00 Results of group actvities and discussionChris Mutel  ETH Zürich (Switzerland) 
16:50 Wrap-up and closing remarks  
17:00 End  

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