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Purpose Climate change is an urgent and serious global problem. Life cycle assessment methods may be used to evaluate the life cycle carbon footprint of a product, such as the National Geographic magazine. The results of the study provide the publisher and material suppliers with information to reduce life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The study also informs consumers of the GHG emissions associated with the product. The purpose of this study was to document the life cycle carbon footprint of the National Geographic magazine.

As our society continues to better prepare itself to address biological, radiological, chemical, and environmental emergencies, there is a need for better and more readily available emergency planning information for program managers and military or business personnel. Incorporating an online hazardous materials (HAZMATs) and emergency planning tool into the Environmental Knowledge and Assessment Tool (EKAT: www.ekat-tool.com) would adequately fill that need. Although not yet fully functional, the project report that this manuscript is based on is available for viewing on the EKAT web site. The proposed online emergency preparation and green engineering (EPGE) tool would provide the user with information regarding links to local emergency response teams and resources, guides for developing emergency plans and reports, HAZMATs training information, case studies to illustrate HAZMAT situations, and the ability to judge the environmental greenness of chemicals. In this way, it will serve as a means of facilitating and educating individuals for best responses in an organized fashion. To address their environmental responsibilities, public and private organizations are adopting environmental management systems (EMS). The EPGE tool is used in conjunction with EMS to address sustainability. Currently, the creation of a comprehensive tool that identifies environmental, health, and safety concerns along with supplying relevant emergency data is applicable to any business or organization. It is designed to be used as a guide to characterize and solve the environmental issues that could affect any business. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 2009

Designed and built by the National Environmental Evaluation and Remediation Consortium, the Environmental Knowledge and Assessment Tool (EKAT™) at www.ekat-tool.com is a web-based project management and decision-support tool to identify, research, and evaluate environmental and pollution prevention options, and safety-related issues for materials used in products and systems. The original concept of EKAT was to help Marine Corps Systems Command integrate environmental requirements into systems acquisition programs. The tool can also benefit federal and state agencies, communities, and businesses. EKAT contains information on technical and regulatory requirements and serves as a resource center with links to references, tools, and databases to assist in research efforts and minimize unintentional safety and environmental effects associated with product development or use. Features include project management and organizational capability, collaboration within project teams or the EKAT community, and communication through threaded discussions. EKAT serves as a preliminary environmental screening tool for regulatory requirements and issues of concern. The user may enter or download lists of chemicals that she or he may have obtained from material safety data sheets for products typically used in activities and operations; these chemicals can then be screened against 14 lists of federally regulated chemicals. Some of the federal lists for which the user's entered chemicals are screened against include the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, various lists of carcinogenic substances, and more. Users may also get help estimating emissions from equipment and manufacturing processes, or review information resource documents and research guides, which provide additional environmental information and resources in a user-friendly format. All regulatory information, for environmental, health, and safety issues found within EKAT, is based on United States federal laws and regulations, to which links can be found throughout. Links to sources of additional information, other than U.S. governmental web sites or resources, may also be found in EKAT. © 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 2007

Life cycle inventory (LCI) is becoming more widely used as a tool to evaluate the resource and energy use and the environmental releases associated with various products. The methodology for handling different recycling scenarios is also becoming increasingly important. Several different methods exist for handling recycling in an LCI. The method described in this paper uses mathematical models to show that the same basic equations can be used to handle a variety of recycling options for multi-product systems.

Pressure is mounting for more streamlined Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods that allow for evaluations that are quick and simple, but accurate. As part of an overall research effort to develop and demonstrate streamlined LCA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has funded studies to examine the validity of various streamlining methods. Ten streamlining methods were identified and tested for accuracy against full LCAs. The objective of this effort was to identify streamlining methods that produced conclusions similar to those reached through full LCAs. Results of this evaluation showed that many streamlining methods give incorrect conclusions at least half of the time as compared to full LCAs. Streamlining will always incur the risk of obtaining results that are different than a full LCA. However, if some level of risk is acceptable, there are some general rules that can be used to select a streamlining method that will reduce the risk of serious error.