Evaluation of life cycle inventory results using critical volume aggregation and polygon-based interpretation

The present paper proposes a new method for evaluating the results of a life cycle inventory using critical volume aggregation and polygon-based interpretation. It is designed to help decision-making in less sophisticated comparisons of products. Its main advantages are simplicity and flexibility, while it leads to an easily comparable single value, without being information intensive. As to disadvantages, except the usual weaknesses of this kind of procedure, one can mention that some ambiguity cannot be avoided, while it may not result in definite conclusions in specific conditions. An application of this method concerning the comparison of three soft-drinks containers (a glass bottle, an aluminium container and a PET bottle) is presented to illustrate the proposed framework. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd.