Life Cycle Assessment and its Application to the Aviation Sector

Abstract

Air transport plays an important role in multiple aspects of human lives, such as business and leisure. Air transport constitutes an important part of the global economy and, at the same time, has a crucial role in both domestic and international transport. It provides people and goods with connectivity that cannot be challenged by any other means of transport and therefore offers crucial services within the modern economy and society. On the other hand, it is the second biggest polluter among the transport methods. Therefore, there is a need to switch to more sustainable solutions within the aviation sector. To choose the right options, a Life cycle assessment can be a useful tool for evaluating environmental impact. Most of the studies concerned with the environmental impact of aviation focus on the pollutants emitted during the flight, ignoring other direct and indirect effects on the environment. The extraction of raw materials needed for the construction of aviation infrastructure, its manufacturing, operation and maintenance and fuel production is often ignored. In this paper, the first life cycle assessment methodology is explained, along with its benefits and the important role played by the mining industry within LCA. In the next part, we present a possible model for evaluating the overall environmental impact of air transport, divided into four main parts – production, operation, maintenance and liquidation, followed by the analysis of the social aspect of the impact evaluation.