Dose-response modeling for life cycle impact assessment, Findings of the Portland Review Workshop

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative aims at putting life cycle thinking into practice and at improving the supporting tools for this process through better data and indicators. The initiative has thus launched three programs with associated working groups (see http://www.uneptie.org/pc/sustain/lcinitiative/). The Task Force on Toxic Impacts was established under the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) program to establish recommended practice and guidance for use in human toxicity, ecosystem toxicity, and related categories with direct effects on human health and ecosystem health. During the 2004 SETAC Europe meeting in Prague, an international group of LCIA practitioners initiated activities of the LCIA Task Force 3 (TF3) to address exposure and toxicity with the goal of establishing guidance for LCIA. As an adjunct activity of the 2004 SETAC World Congress in Portland, Oregon, TF3 members organized a workshop to review existing proposals on human toxicity indicators for LCIA. The particular focus of this workshop was on options regarding dose-effect response and severity. The review workshop consisted of formal presentations of approaches followed by a review discussion performed by a panel of internationally recognized dose-response modeling experts. This workshop was organized by Thomas McKone of the University of California, Berkeley and Michael Hauschild and Stig Irving Olsen from the Danish Technical University in Denmark. Amy Kyle of the University of California, Berkeley, facilitated the workshop. This workshop involved several internationally recognized dose-response modeling experts as well as LCIA specialists (see footnote for the full list). The product of this workshop is a set of short recommendations that are being transmitted via this report.