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Life Cycle Assessment of Primary Zinc and First Tier Applications
Harald Florin,* PE INTERNATIONAL
Kevin Brady, Five Winds International
Andrew Green, International Zinc Association
Ivo Merisowsky, Five Winds International
Amit Kapur, PE Americas
Liila Woods, PE AmericasThe International Zinc Association (IZA) initiated the ‘Zinc for Life’ program in 2006 with the priumary goal to position zinc as a material of environmental choice for engineers, architects and other specifiers, by providing sound scientific information about the sustainability performance attributes of zinc products. The two complementary components of ‘Zinc for Life’ are (1) Outreach & Communication, and (2) Methodology & Data Generation. The ‘Zinc for Life’ website www.zincforlife.org will be a vehicle to communicate the progress and outcomes of the program.
In the framework of the second part of the program, life cycle assessment (LCA) studies have been conducted to generate scientifically robust life cycle inventory (LCI) data on zinc and zinc products for a variety of end-uses (such as zinc sheet, hot dip galvanization and die casting). This repository of “up-to-date” LCI data will be benefical to IZA, zinc industry stakeholders, and LCA practitioners to understand and communicate the environmental benefits of zinc in end-use applications when compared to other products with similar performance characteristics.
This presentation summarises the results of the life cycle inventory study of primary zinc as well as results of the life cycle inventory study of the zinc sheet process. The environmental profile of a roofing application of zinc sheet will be discussed.
* corresponding author: h.florin@pe-international.com