Adapting Life Cycle Impact Assessment Methodology to Quantify New Product Design Risks

Numerous uncertainties arising over the total life cycle of a product can adversely affect its expected performance, including sustainability. These risks must be considered early during the product design process. The effect of these risks is a combination of how likely they are to occur (probability of occurrence) and the potential impact (consequence) if they occur. However, existing methodologies for assessing these risks are focused only on the likelihood of risks, without consideration of the potential impact. The use of probability data alone for assessments limits its effectiveness for risk prioritization. Methods and models for assessing the impact of the potential risks of new product designs can help address these limitations, yet none such methods/models exist. This paper presents a novel approach for quantifying the impacts of new product design risks, developed by adapting the ISO 14040 Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methodology. The paper discusses the approach to adapt the selection of impact categories and category indicators, assignment of life cycle inventory results, and calculation of category indicator results from LCIA for risk impact assessment. Issues and challenges arising from adapting these LCIA steps are presented. Assumptions and simplifications that must be made to transform these steps for risk impact assessment are also discussed. In conclusion, the paper provides the next steps and directions for future research following the establishment of the methodology.