This study aims to introduce life cycle thinking into chemical alternatives assessment. Chemical Alternatives Assessment (CAA) identifies toxic and concerned chemical substances and suggests safer alternatives. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a systematic assessment method for quantifying the environmental impacts of a product, service, or process that covers from raw material extraction, manufacturing, and use to disposal. Hazard assessment of chemicals usually addresses the human exposure risk in the use stage. In this study, the integrated CAA with LCA comprehensively evaluates the potential impacts on receptors at the use stage and analyzes the potential risks, and resources and energy consumption at the chemical manufacturing stage. However, LCA relies on a complete database for inventory analysis and impact assessment. Besides, the requirement to predict the toxicity of emerging chemicals is urgent because of speedy emerging chemical innovation. Therefore, a tool equipped with a database for conducting LCA and a function for simulating the relevant parameters of emerging chemicals is necessary. The goals of this study are to evaluate the feasibility of applying the CLiCC (Chemical Life Cycle Collaborative; www.clicc.net) platform to LCA-CAA method by quantifying the environmental impacts of chemical alternatives through life cycle stages and establish LCA-CAA framework to adopt safer chemical substitutes. We have completed the feasibility study of introducing the CLiCC tool into chemical alternative analysis through case studies, organizing training sessions, and proposing an evaluation framework for life-cycle based chemical alternatives assessment. Introducing LCA into CAA is expected to optimize hazardous chemical management by providing holistic information on chemical impacts and avoiding unexpected environmental risks.

Chemical Alternatives Assessment, Life Cycle Assessment, CLiCC (Chemical Life Cycle Collaborative) Tool