Building Science for Environmental Protection in the 21st Century - Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead - page 121

BOX 4-2 Continued

gas for greenhouse gas emissions (such as methane emissions) and how do
they compare on a life-cycle basis with other alternatives? From a sustainabil-
ity point of view, are there ways in which consumers could be encouraged to
decrease their consumption of energy that comes from natural gas rather
than simply increasing the production of natural gas? Questions such as
these are of course beyond the sole domain of EPA, but systems thinking can
help inform EPA's scientific research and ultimately its regulatory choices as
well.
This case example is not designed to be prescriptive or to suggest that
the agency has not been pursuing many of the questions. Rather, a system-
atic look at the experience with hydrofracking can lend guidance on many
fronts for enhancing EPA science's ability to stay at the leading edge and
embrace systems thinking in a variety of important fields.

Many analytic tools and skills can contribute to analyzing and evaluating
such complex scenarios. The committee describes below four areas in which the
agency's tools and skills can be enhanced and integrated to support systems
thinking better:

 Life-cycle assessment (LCA).

 Cumulative risk assessment.

 Social, economic, behavioral, and decision sciences.

 Synthesis research.

These tools can be used in conjunction with one another and as inputs to meth-
ods for synthesis and evaluation for decisions. In each situation, it is important
to integrate efforts to characterize both human health and ecosystem effects.

Life-Cycle Assessment

LCA is “a technique to assess the environmental aspects and potential im-
pacts associated with a product, process, or service, by: compiling an inventory
of relevant energy and material inputs and environmental releases; evaluating
the potential environmental impacts associated with identified inputs and re-
leases; [and] interpreting the results to help [decision-makers] make a more in-
formed decision” (EPA 2006a, p.2). Performing such analysis requires an ac-
counting of where all materials used in an activity originate and end up. It also
requires an accounting of all the inputs into the activity (such as energy and
transportation) and their associated environmental consequences and of the
changes in other behaviors and other activities that the primary activity induces.
Box 4-3 discusses an example of the need for and challenges of LCA.
The idea of LCA is appealing, but the technical details of how to do it well
are very challenging. Broadly, two approaches are traditionally used. Process-