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Impact categories (IC)
The impact categories (IC) represent environmental issues of concern to which LCI results may be assigned. The IC selected in each LCA study has to describe the impacts caused by considered products or product system analysed. The selection of the list of impacts categories has to fulfil several conditions:
- The overall recommendation regarding the choice of impact categories is to include all the impact categories for which international consensus have been reached.
- The list should not contain too many categories.
- Double counting should be avoided by choosing independent impact categories.
- The characterisation methods of the different impact categories should be available.
Some baseline examples considered in most of the LCA studies are illustrated in Table 1.1:
| impact category | category indicator | characterisation model | characterisation factor |
| Abiotic depletion | Ultimate reserve. annual use | Guinee & Heijungs 95 | ADP |
| Climate change | infrared radiative forcing | IPCC model | GWP |
| Stratospheric ozone depletion | stratospheric ozone breakdown | WMO model | ODP |
| Human toxicity | PDI/ADI | Multimedia model, e.g.EUSES, CalTox | HTP |
| Ecotoxicity (aquatic, terrestrial etc.) | PEC/PNEC | Multimedia model, e.g. EUSES, CalTox | AETP, TETP, etc. |
| Photo-oxidant formation | Trop. ozone formation | UNECE Trajectory model | POCP |
| Acidification | Deposition critical load | RAINS | AP |
| Eutrophication | Nutrient enrichment | CARMEN | EP |
Table 1.1: Basline examples, source CIEMAT
As there is no international agreement on the different approaches regarding the impact categories, different methods are applied in current LCAs. Besides, some studies do not analyse all the impact categories of the previous list, while others use more than the previous categories mentioned.
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