LIFE CYCLE IMPACT ASSESSMENT (LCIA) Significance of the use of non-renewable fossil CED as proxy indicator for screening LCA in the beverage packaging sector Antonio Scipioni & Monia Niero & Anna Mazzi & Alessandro Manzardo & Sara Piubello Received: 4 October 2011 / Accepted: 18 July 2012 / Published online: 2 August 2012 # Springer-Verlag 2012 Abstract Purpose This study discusses the significance of the use of non-renewable fossil cumulative energy demand (CED) as proxy indicator in the beverage packaging sector, in order to detect those situations in which companies can benefit from the use of proxy indicators before a full life cycle assess- ment (LCA) application. Starting from a case study of two milk containers, the objectives of this paper are to assess if the use of this inventory indicator can be a suitable proxy indicator both (1) to decide which is the packaging alterna- tive with the lowest environmental impact and (2) to identify the most impacting process units of the two products under study. Method The analysis was made according to ISO14040-44. The goal of the comparative LCA was to evaluate and to compare the potential environmental impacts from cradle to grave of a laminated carton container and a HDPE bottle. The results of the comparative LCA obtained with the non- renewable CED indicator are compared with a selection of impact categories: climate change, particulate matter forma- tion, terrestrial acidification, fossil depletion, photochemical oxidant formation. A further analysis is made for the two products under study in order to determine which are the environmental hot spots in terms of life cycle stages, by the means of a contribution analysis. Results and discussion From the comparative LCA, the use of non-renewable CED revealed to be useful for a screening as the results given by the non-renewable CED indicator are confirmed by all the impact categories considered, even if underestimated. If the aim of the LCA study was to define which is the packaging solution with a lower environmental impact, the choice of this inventory indicator could have led to the same decision as if a comprehensive LCIA method was used. The contribution analysis, focusing on the identi- fication of environmental hot spots in the packaging value chain, revealed that the choice of an inventory indicator as non-renewable CED can lead to misleading results, if com- pared with another impact category, such as climate change. Conclusions As in the future development of beverage packaging system, LCA will be necessarily integrated in the design process, it is important to define other ways of simplifying its application and spread its use among com- panies. The LCI indicator non-renewable fossil CED can effectively be used in order to obtain a preliminary estima- tion of the life cycle environmental impacts of two or more competing products in the beverage packaging sector. Keywords Beverage packaging . Cumulative energy demand . Life cycle impact assessment . Proxy indicators . Screening LCA 1 Introduction The choice of the Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods is important in an LCA, particularly with reference to the use of the results obtained from the application of LCA to a particular product or process. Depending on whether an evaluation of a specific impact category is required (Pant et al. 2004) or whether performance of a product or process from several viewpoints is needed (Mizsey et al. 2009), the assess- ment of the results from different LCIA methods could be critical for decision making. In fact, depending on the moti- vations and objectives, a particular impact assessment method Responsible editor: Guido Sonnemann A. Scipioni (*) : M. Niero : A. Mazzi : A. Manzardo : S. Piubello Department of Industrial Engineering, CESQA, c/o University of Padova, Via Marzolo 9, 35131 Padova, Italy e-mail: scipioni@unipd.it Int J Life Cycle Assess (2013) 18:673–682 DOI 10.1007/s11367-012-0484-x