Admission requirements
This course is part of the MSc Industrial Ecology (joint degree between Leiden University and Delft University of Technology). MSc-IE students should have attended and successfully completed the course ‘Methods: Analysing Physical Processes (4413MAPPT)’. All participants are expected to have basic knowledge of environmental science and basic knowledge of matrix algebra.
For students of the master’s programme Industrial Ecology that intend to do their Thesis Research Project on a topic which involves LCA or is closely related to LCA with a supervisor from CML, successful completion of this course is mandatory.”
Description
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is one of the core methods of Industrial Ecology. It is a science- and evidence-based method for quantifying the environmental burdens and impacts related to the whole life cycle of a product or service system. LCA is and has been used to analyze and assess a wide variety of product/service systems, ranging from packaging materials to national waste management or energy scenarios, and from building materials to food products.
Course objectives
This course aims to provide sufficient scientific and practical skills to independently perform an attributional life cycle assessment study. LCA is one of the core methods of IE and this course provides students with in-depth knowledge of this method.
After this course, students should be able to individually:
Draft a concise, to-the-point proposal for their own LCA research, including a brief literature review and formulation of research questions
Critically evaluate the pros and cons of LCA (as a method)
Gather, use and integrate data from multiple sources in the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) phase
Plan and individually perform a methodologically consistent and in-depth LCA study on a product system with a known (environmental) sustainability problem
Create and develop a proper LCA model in openLCA (which we will most likely start using this year for the first time as the successor of CMLCA)
Present and analyze LCA results, identify problems and propose solutions
Plan and monitor research
Report an LCA study and its findings transparently and comprehensively
Identify, justify and report LCA's key methodological assumptions and choices
Critically evaluate and discuss the possibilities and constraints of their LCA study
Timetable
The course starts with two intensive theory weeks (half days). After this week, students will perform their own LCA study. A minimum of 80% attendance is required for the theory week.
Note that this course is a first-semester course but has its deadline in the first week of December, and not in January, because several other courses, including TPM and SUSCH IE already have deadlines in January. Students should take this into account when planning.
You will find the timetables for all courses and degree programmes of Leiden University in the tool MyTimetable (login). Any teaching activities that you have sucessfully registered for in MyStudyMap will automatically be displayed in MyTimeTable. Any timetables that you add manually, will be saved and automatically displayed the next time you sign in.
MyTimetable allows you to integrate your timetable with your calendar apps such as Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and other calendar apps on your smartphone. Any timetable changes will be automatically synced with your calendar. If you wish, you can also receive an email notification of the change. You can turn notifications on in ‘Settings’ (after login).
For more information, watch the video or go the the 'help-page' in MyTimetable.
Please note: Joint Degree students Leiden/Delft have to merge their two different timetables into one. This video explains how to do this.
Mode of instruction
The course starts with two intensive half-day ‘Theory Weeks’ (TWs) in September. After the TWs, students will first write a research proposal and, directly after that, perform their own LCA study. During the period in which students are working on their LCA case study, a one-day meeting will be organized in which students present their progress and preliminary results to fellow students and instructors while receiving and providing valuable feedback for completing their research and report.
While performing their LCA research, students will have access to an online Q&A forum supported by alumni students who successfully completed the course in the past. In addition, weekly F2F Q&A sessions are organized.
The dates and timeslots for the TWs, Q&A sessions, and Presentations day will be communicated through MyTimeTable and Brightspace.
Assessment method
The assessment is based on a research proposal and the LCA case study report. In addition, a midterm submission of a draft openLCA model and presentation of results is mandatory for all students (pass-fail) but not graded.
Weighing
The final grade is based on the research proposal (20%) and case study report, including the LCA model developed with the openLCA software (80%); the grade of the case study report and openLCA file together are expressed by means of a figure between 1 and 10, rounded to the nearest half. The grade 5.5 cannot be granted. Grades between 5.01 and 5.49 are rounded to 5.0 and grades between 5.50 and 5.99 are rounded to 6.0. The case study and the final grades should at least be 6.0 to pass the course.
Resit
There is no retake possibility for the research proposal, only for the case study report. Only if the grade of the case study report is lower than 5.5, students can do a retake of this report. Note, however, that retakes of case study reports are rewarded with a 6 maximum. Students that don’t make the deadline for the case study report and only submit a case study report for the retake will also receive a maximum grade of 6.
Inspection and feedback
Students receive extensive written feedback on their submitted proposals and final reports, which they can inspect and react to. For the final report, students can respond up to 14 days after publication of the grade.
Reading list
Brightspace Leiden will be used for communications and distributing study material.
Hardware requirements
To be able to run openLCA, your laptop (Windows, Linux, macOS) needs the following minimum system requirements (make sure that your laptop complies with these minimum requirements in advance of the course):
CPU with 2 GHz or higher
8 GB RAM or higher
750 MB free hard disk space or higher
Registration
Every student of all years must enroll via MyStudyMap.
In this short video, you will see step by step how to enroll in courses in MyStudyMap. Note that your enrollment is only completed when you submit your course planning in the 'Ready for enrollment' tab by clicking 'submit'.
There are two registration periods per year: registration for the fall semester opens in July and registration for the spring semester opens in December. Please see this page for more information.
Please note that it is compulsory to register for every exam and retake. Not being registered for a course means that you are not allowed to participate in the final exam. Keep in mind that there are enrollment deadlines, see this page for more information.
Extensive FAQ on MyStudymap can be found here.
Contact
Coordinators: Nils Thonemann, Patrik Henriksson and Jeroen Guinée.
Other involved teacher: Bernhard Steubing, Carlos Felipe Blanco Rocha and Reinout Heijungs.
Remarks
Further questions on the course can be submitted to: lca-pr@cml.leidenuniv.nl