2006 Volume 2 Issue 1 Pages 3-7
Application of Input-Output Analysis (IOA) to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been active in Japan since the very early stage of LCA studies. IOA can provide LCA with a consistent system boundary and practical database for inventory analysis, but the latter is not inherent to IOA itself but subject to the availability of IO Tables with detailed sectoral resolution and extended environmental data. Nevertheless, the framework of IOA has other useful implications for LCA. For example, environmental externalities hidden behind the value added sectors in IO tables can be disclosed by the physical descriptions of inflows of natural resources to a sector and outflows of pollutants from the sector. Furthermore, IOA, LCA as well as MFA (Material Flow Analysis), all of which are tools of industrial ecology, can be better integrated and their symbiosis may produce significant mutual benefits. Possible contributions from one tool to another are tabulated as a metaphor to IO tables. The framework of Physical Input Output Tables (PIOT) with empirical database by hybrid approach is most promising for such integration.
