Development of a probabilistic life cycle assessment methodology adapted to the telecommunication sector and combining data reliability and validity

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Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology which considers both mass and energy inputs and outputs over the entire life of a system (which can be a product or a service) and translates these into environmental impacts.  Although LCA is governed by international standards (ISO 14040), the method faces criticism for the variability of its results (either inventory or environmental impacts depending on the level of detail of the study conducted) due to uncertainties surrounding the system data studied.  While approaches have been proposed to consider several types of uncertainty associated with the system data, no method combining these types of uncertainties has yet been developed.  The global variability of data input can be characterized by its reliability and its validity with respect to the data quality requirements of the study.  This research project develops a methodology based on the consideration of these two characteristics to define the uncertainties associated with the system data and then to expand these uncertainties to the LCA results namely, environmental impacts.  The aim of the project is twofold.  On one hand, it defines a clear and accurate methodology to manage uncertainty in LCA and in doing so, tones down criticism regarding LCA.  On the other hand, the developed methodology is operationalized into probabilistic LCA software for a better interpretation of LCA results.  This research project is applied to the telecommunications sector in collaboration with Bell Canada.