The LCA approach is widely recognized as a useful framework and attempts are underway to integrate life cycle thinking into business decisions.  A major international initiative in this direction is the series of environmental management standards (EMS) proposed by the International Standards Organization, widely known as ISO 14000. Standards being developed for inclusion under ISO 14000 cover principles and guidelines for conducting LCA for product evaluation. Similarly, the EPA document "Guidance on acquisition of environmentally preferable products and services" prepared to help implement the President's Executive order 12873, recommends LCA approach in all federal procurement. Many eco-labeling  and product take back regulations in Europe require life-cycle environmental analysis of products. 

The current methods for LCA, proposed by the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry and the USEPA, suffer from problems of arbitrary boundary definition, inflexibility, high cost, and data confidentiality. 

This dissertation develops alternative analytical models, databases and software to conduct quick, cheap and yet comprehensive LCAs. The core of the analytical model consists of the 518 sector economic input-output tables for the US economy augmented with various sector level environmental impact vectors. The environmental impacts covered include, global warming, acidification, energy use, non-renewable ores consumption, eutrophication, conventional pollutant emissions and toxic releases to the environment. Alternative models are proposed for environmental assessment of individual products and processes using the aggregate input-output data. To demonstrate the method, a case study comparing the life cycle environmental performance of steel and plastic automobile fuel tank systems is presented.