How Green is That Product?

An Introduction to Life Cycle Environmental Assessment

Homework #8
Goals: In this assignment, youll do the following:

conduct the life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) step for your bottled soft drink LCA using TRACI;
and
generate and interpret a contribution analysis of your LCIA results.

Instructions: When you complete the assignment, return to the Week 8 course page on the Coursera
website. Click on the Submit Homework Assignment Answers button, which will allow you to enter
your answers into a web form for automated grading.
Grading: This assignment is worth 100 points. The point values of each answer are listed below. You
can submit a maximum of 30 attempts. The highest scoring attempt that is submitted before the
deadline will count toward your official grade. Scores for each attempt will be available immediately
after submission of your answers.
Numbers: In this assignment, and throughout this course, numbers will be expressed using the U.S.
numeric convention where commas separate thousands and the dot (or decimal point) is the decimal
separator. For example, the number one thousand two hundred and one-tenth is written 1,200.1.
Life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) using TRACI (5 points for each correct answer)
The Week 8 version of the bottled soft drink LCA contains the final and complete life-cycle inventory
(LCI). Your job is to now conduct the life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) step, using characterization
factors from the U.S. EPAs Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and Other Environmental
Impacts (TRACI). These characterization factors can be observed on the TRACI tab in the Week 8
version of the bottled soft drink LCA spreadsheet file.
Using your final LCI results and the TRACI characterization factors, complete the TRACI Results tab in
your project spreadsheet. Use the Week 8 version of the HDPE grocery bag LCA spreadsheet as a helpful
example. When youve completed the TRACI Results tab, enter the category indicator results you
obtained into the table below.
When completing this task, please do the following:
1. Assume that all air emissions occur in urban areas, just as we did in the Week 8 version of the
HDPE grocery bag LCA spreadsheet.
2. Calculate the grand totals for the eutrophication, ecotoxicity, human health cancer, and
human health non-cancer impact categories by adding the results for air and water into one
grand total. Note that TRACI category indicator results for a given impact category can be
summed across emissions media, which is what we are asking you to do here. Refer to the

Contribution I tab of the Week 8 version of the HDPE grocery bag LCA spreadsheet file to
observe how we simply summed up air results and water results for these impact categories into
grand totals for the calculations in our contribution analysis. Note that you may have to
unhide some columns on the Contribution I tab.
Note: All answers should use the following format X.XXE-XX. However, the E-XX term has already
been provided for you for each answer. Thus, you only need to enter the X.XX portion of the number
in each answer box. For example, if the category indicator result for global warming is 3.22E-01, just
enter 3.22 into the shaded answer box in Table 1; the E-01 term has already been provided for you.
TRACI category indicator results (X.XXE-XX)
Impact category (units)
Global Warming Air (kg CO2 eq)
Acidification Air (kg H+ moles eq)
Human Health Criteria Air (kg PM10 eq)
Eutrophication total (air + water) (kg N eq)
Ozone Depletion Air (kg CFC-11 eq)
Smog Air (kg O3 eq)
Ecotoxicity total (air + water) (PAF.m3.day)
Human health - cancer total (air + water) (cases)
Human health - non-cancer total (air + water)
(cases)

Total (X.XX)

Total (E-XX)
E-01
E-02
E-04
E-05
E-10
E-02
E-01
E-10
E-09

Question
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Contribution analysis (6 points for each correct answer 10-17; 7 points for answer 18)
Using your LCIA results in Table 1, construct a contribution analysis for each TRACI impact category by
unit process in your bottled soft drink life cycle. Follow the format thats been provided for you on the
Contribution I tab of the Week 8 version of the HDPE grocery bag LCA spreadsheet file. Your
contribution analysis table should list your 21 bottled soft drink life cycle unit processes in rows, the 9
impact categories in columns, and the percent contribution of each unit process to each impact category
in the cells. When youve completed this task, enter the name of the unit process that makes the
greatest contribution to each impact category into the table below. Note that your contribution analysis
should be based on the grand totals (air results + water results) for eutrophication, ecotoxicity, human
health-cancer, and human-health non-cancer. This is the same approach as we used on the
Contribution I tab of the Week 8 version of the HDPE grocery bag LCA spreadsheet file. Refer to that
file for guidance. Note that you may have to unhide some columns on the Contribution I tab.

Greatest contributing unit processes by impact category

Impact category
Unit Process
Global warming
Acidification
Human health criteria
Eutrophication total
Ozone depletion
Smog
Ecotoxicity total
Human health - cancer total
Human health - non-cancer total

Question
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18