Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: How humans use and misuse products changes the forecasted life cycle environmental impacts of those products. Human behavior is generally considered to be the ways in which humans act and interact both with each other and their environments. In order to fully understand the potential influence of the range human behavior on those impacts, it must be studied and modeled in a holistic manner. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a critical tool in assessing the environmental impacts of products and processes. At the same time, it is not well suited on its own to exploring the shifts in the anticipated environmental impacts of a product or process due to human behavior, and often relies on the usage of stylized or optimized scenarios. Agent based modeling (ABM), a bottom-up modeling framework, is well suited to explore human behavior. Through coupling LCA and ABM there is the opportunity to explore the influence of human behavior, and see the people, in these studies. Here, a critical review approach is taken to first identify the current gaps in literature and then to posit a potential to couple LCA and ABM to more fully realize the impacts of human behavior. A case study approach is taken to more fully explore this potential in context. The adoption of new products also has the potential to influence how humans behave and use those products. The potential influence of human behavior at the different product life cycle stages is presented utilizing grocery shopping bags as an example of the potential for humans to shift from the stylized scenarios we often utilize in LCA. Beyond that, the coupling of these two tools has the potential to lead to more accurate forecasts of the environmental impact of products and processes when the impact of human behavior has the potential to be significant. Human behavior is critical to consider with respect to the LCA of products as it has the potential to greatly shift the projected environmental impacts, often in ways that are not considered by the product designers.
Author: Andrea Hicks
Institution: University of Wisconsin–Madison
Language: English
Subfield: Environmental Engineering
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,750
Funder: University of Wisconsin-Madison
OpenAlex ID: W4281730977