Development and application of a Combined Approach for Inherent Safety and Environmental (CAISEN) assessment

•Combined Approach for Inherent Safety and Environmental (CAISEN) assessment shown.•Overlap of inventory for LCA and safety formed the core of CAISEN.•CAISEN carried out for methanol production at different scales.•CASIEN enables shortlisting/selecting of processes with limited process information.•Weighting of safety/environmental impacts offers flexibility in CAISEN.

A Combined Approach for Inherent Safety and Environmental (CAISEN) assessment is presented. The methodology first describes the synergy between the information required for conducting both safety and life cycle assessment (LCA). The overlapping set of data needed for each method enables both safety and environmental impact assessment to be carried out effectively as one integrated tool. The LCA framework formed the basis of the CAISEN assessment methodology.The proposed CAISEN assessment tool was tested on methanol production from natural gas at different production scales. The changes in environmental impacts were apparent as the production scales were changed from kilogram to ton scales. However for safety, the degree of hazard associated with methanol production remained high regardless of the different production scales.From the case study results and sensitivity analysis, it was observed that CAISEN assessment can be used to short list/select processes where process information is limited.