Economic-input-output life cycle assessment (EIO-LCA) method

The EIO-LCA method (economic-input-output life cycle assessment), estimates the materials and energy resources required and the emissions to the environment resulting from economic activities. It is a technique for conducting a life cycle assessment as well as an environmental impact assessment of a product or process over its entire life cycle (http://www.eiolca.net/Method/index.html).

The method uses information on transactions in industry, procurement of materials from other industries and information on direct environmental emissions of industries, to estimate total emissions throughout the supply chain (http://www.eiolca.net/Method/index.html).

The EIO-LCA method can be applied to any economic activity to estimate the use of water resources (m3), the use of food resources (kg), the use of energy resources (KWh), the use of thermal energy resources (kcal), all of which are correlated with the analysis economic value of inputs and outputs. This method is most often applied locally and regionally (John Sherwood et al. 2017).