© Copyright 2000 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University Volume 3, Number 2 & 3 y RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS Journal of Industrial Ecology 95 Product Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment Using Input-OutputTechniques Satish Joshi James Madison College Michigan State University East Lansing, MI USA y Summary Life-cycle assessment (LCA) facilitates a systems view in environmental evaluation of products, materials, and pro- cesses. Life-cycle assessment attempts to quantify environ- mental burdens over the entire life-cycle of a product from raw material extraction, manufacturing, and use to ultimate disposal. However, current methods for LCA suffer from problems of subjective boundary definition, inflexibility, high cost, data confidentiality, and aggregation. This paper proposes alternative models to conduct quick, cost effective, and yet comprehensive life-cycle as- sessments. The core of the analytical model consists of the 498 sector economic input-output tables for the U.S. economy augmented with various sector-level environ- mental impact vectors. The environmental impacts cov- ered include global warming, acidification, energy use, non-renewable ores consumption, eutrophication, conven- tional pollutant emissions and toxic releases to the envi- ronment. Alternative models are proposed for environmental assessment of individual products, pro- cesses, and life-cycle stages by selective disaggregation of aggregate input-output data or by creation of hypothetical new commodity sectors. To demonstrate the method, a case study comparing the life-cycle environmental perfor- mance of steel and plastic automobile fuel tank systems is presented. y Keywords automobile fuel tanks design for environment (DfE) input-output analysis ISO 14000 life-cycle assessment (LCA) product evaluation Address correspondence to: Satish Joshi 313 Case Hall James Madison College Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 USA Satish@pilot.msu.edu http://www.msu.edu/user/satish