ELA - A FRAMEWORK FOR LIFE-CYCLE IMPACT ASSESSMENT DEVELOPED BY THE FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT .B. BASIC FUNCTIONALITY OF ELA EXPLAINED WITH AN EXAMPLE - IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF ALCOHOL SULFATES BASED ON OLEOCHEMICAL AND PETROCHEMICAL SOURCES

As part of a publication series, this paper deals with the description and explanation of basic features of the PC-compatible computer progr am ELA (Environmental Loads Analysis) with the example of alcohol sulp hate production based on different raw materials. Beside an ''open env ironment'' architecture to facilitate data transfer from and to the sy stem, ELA consists of a graphics module and data bases containing info rmation on emissions, resources, waste and on ''actual flows'' data fo r 3 reference areas. The latter is for the impact assessment results a nalysis (formerly ''normalisation'') module. Thus, inventory data sets can be assessed very quickly in terms of environmental impacts and th e results can be instantly visualised. Beside that, ELA offers the opt ion to include ecotoxicological and toxicological aspects in the impac t assessment. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.