Title: Volkswagen slimLCI: a procedure for streamlined inventory modelling within life cycle assessment of vehicles

Authors: Christoph Koffler, Stephan Krinke, Liselotte Schebek, Jens Buchgeister

Addresses: Volkswagen AG, Environmental Affairs Product, Letter box 011/1774, 38426 Wolfsburg, Germany. ' Volkswagen AG, Environmental Affairs Product, Letter box 011/1774, 38426 Wolfsburg, Germany. ' Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Institute of Technical Chemistry, Department of Technology-Induced Material Flows, Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany. ' Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Institute of Technical Chemistry, Department of Technology-Induced Material Flows, Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany

Abstract: One of the key prerequisites of environmentally-friendly product design is a quantitative assessment of the environmental profile of product design options. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool for evaluating the environmental performance of goods and services over the whole life cycle. Yet, the effort involved remains one major obstacle for its wide-spread use. It is well-known that collecting and processing the relevant data is the most time-consuming part while conducting an LCA study of complex systems. It is possible to reduce the workload significantly by automating these process steps, which also offers advantages in terms of LCA quality.

Keywords: eco-design; streamlined LCI; automotive LCA; life cycle assessment; product design; vehicle design; Volkswagen; inventory modelling; environmental performance; environmentally-friendly design; life cycle inventory.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.2008.017181

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 2008 Vol.46 No.2, pp.172 - 188

Published online: 17 Feb 2008 *

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