Fifteen years of ISO 14040: a review

Life Cycle Assessment is a methodology by which manufacturers or service providers can analyze the environmental impacts and effects of their products and services. The duration of this assessment extends across the entire life cycle of products and services (“cradle-to-grave”). This process allows for product comparison and strategic decision making with regard to systemic inputs and outputs, as well as the development and incorporation of End-of-Life design strategies. A systemized framework for conducting LCAs was released by the International Organization for Standardization during the period 1997-2000, resulting in the standards ISO 14040, 14041, 14042 and 14043. Updates to these standards were completed in 2006 so that the previous standards were amalgamated into ISO 14040 and 14044. Using a full literature review, this paper seeks to examine to what degree past criticisms of the standards figured in the revision process and to outline what areas are meritorious for future revision. To date, no concerted effort has been made to both assemble a continuous history of the standard and evaluate its contributions across multiple facets of life cycle assessment. Though little technical content in the documents was changed, there were significant improvements with regard to language and clarity. In turn, this informed a broadening of the standard's capability as evidenced by the examination of the case of aluminum smelting. This was particularly evident in changes made to the definitions of the terms allocation, product system, system boundary and waste. Since 2006, many of the recommendations for the improvement of the standards seek to either increase the standards' specificity or augment the original intent of the standards. While there are a few areas for minor improvements, the overall content of the standards is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.