A new high-level life cycle assessment framework for evaluating environmental performance: an aviation case study

Conventional Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods are able to assess environmental impact using significant resources (including time and data). However, due to the challenges associated with data collection these can still suffer from issues including representation accuracy, comparability, data availability, data quality, and uncertainty. This paper describes a new streamlined, high-level framework which seeks to solve these issues through rigorous and iterative application of existing standardised LCA methodologies whilst continually engaging with stakeholders. This new framework has been applied to an aviation case study, which seeks to investigate the potential environmental impact of implementing sustainable aviation fuel (including fuels based on used cooking oil, power to liquid technology, and hydrogen) and digitalisation of training regimes within a UK aircraft manufacturer. These are currently major areas of focus to enable the decarbonisation of the global aviation sector. The proposed framework allowed for efficient joint interpretation of results by different stakeholders, and therefore enabled effective strategic decision making without requiring the granular level of data detail demanded by conventional LCA frameworks. The case study has shown that each scenario offers potential reductions in global warming potential, fine particulate matter formation, and water consumption for an aircraft; but only when the associated supply chain is just as sustainable as the scenario in question. Overall, this research has shown that applying the new framework allows for rapid evaluation of decarbonisation technologies through rigorous environmental assessment to a degree accuracy which still enables strategic decision making, but without the use of unnecessary resources. Although this framework has been developed to work across product, platform, or system, further work should seek to apply it in different contexts as a LCA enabler within technological developments including exploration of other aviation decarbonisation pathways to achieve net zero.