LCA of an Ecolabeled Notebook - GreenDeltaTC

3 Life Cycle Inventories
Social Life Cycle Inventory
The inventories of the social and the environmental LCA are described separately, because
the approach is very different, although in several cases identical processes are
considered. Chapter 3.1 contains a condensed social inventory for the entire life cycle:
raw material extraction processes (section 3.1.1), the production of basic materials
(section 3.1.2), the design process of the laptop (section 3.1.3), the production of intermediate
products (section 3.1.4), the final assembly (section 3.1.5), and finally the
recycling phase (section 3.1.6). The full social inventory can be found in annex V. Subchapter
3.2 addresses the environmental inventory. Detailed process adaptions are
provided in annex VI.
3.1 Social Life Cycle Inventory
The following subchapters show the summarised social life cycle inventory for all selected
processes. Some background processes are analysed in different countries, as
this was considered as relevant in order to have a direct comparison. For instance, the
extraction of tin was investigated in China and Indonesia.
The first subchapter (3.1.1) addresses the extraction of raw materials, whereas the
second subchapter (3.1.2) deals with the production of basic materials as metals, plastics,
and glass. The origin of these materials is estimated based on economic data as
import and production statistics. It was not possible to trace the specific source.
Chapter 3.1.3 shows the design process of the laptop; the solely process where ASUS is
involved directly. Section 3.1.4 incorporates the manufacturing of pre-products as for
instance the display, the hard disc drive, or the power supply. The identification of production
locations of companies within the supply chain of the ASUS notebook by the
product labels shows that the majority of intermediate products were manufactured in
China, although most of the companies have their headquarters in Taiwan.
The assembly process of the portable computer is treated in passage 3.1.5.
The recycling processes are described in section 3.1.6. The recycling locations are selected
due to the fictitious life cycle of the notebook with a use phase in Belgium and a
reuse phase in China.
3.1.1 Raw Material Extraction
3.1.1.1 Copper from Chile
Copper is a ductile metal with excellent thermal and electrical conductivity, which
made it very versatile. It belongs to the family of heavy metals. Indeed, compared to
other heavy metals, it has a rather low toxicity for higher organisms. 45 It is produced in
surface mining as well as in deep mining and can be recovered easily. It is assumed that
more than 80% of the ever extracted copper is still in circulation. 46
45 www.kupfer-institut.de
46 ibidem
49