• Ming Xu, Associate Professor, School for Environment and Sustainability & Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan

Ming Xu’s research focuses on environmental footprint analysis and environmental impacts of emerging technologies. He was awarded the Robert A. Laudise Medal from International Society for Industrial Ecology for “outstanding achievement in industrial ecology by a researcher under the age of 36” in 2015. He received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in 2016. Currently he serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Resources, Conservation & Recycling.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a widely used analytical tool to evaluate environmental footprints of product systems. This workshop will provide an overview of LCA focusing on its background, applications, technical foundations, and available databases and software tools.

• • Understand what LCA can do;
  • Understand technical foundations of LCA
  • Know the process of conducting an LCA
  • Know popular databases and software tools

• • Introduction on LCA and its applications
  • Example
  • Hands-on practice
  • Overview of databases and software tools

• • Life cycle thinking
  • How to conduct an LCA
  • Popular databases (e.g., ecoinvent, USLCI, GREET)
  • Popular software tools (e.g., OpenLCA, SimaPro)

• • Participants understand what LCA is and what it can do
  • Participants know the processes of conducting an LCA
  • Participants know popular databases and software tools in LCA