# LCA as a Tool for the Environmental Management of Car Tire Manufacturing
## 3 Materials and Methods
### Four Steps of the Analysis  
One of the possible applications of the LCA method is the assessment of production technology from the point of view of its impact on the natural environment. The aim of the analysis was to compare the environmental impacts associated with the life cycle of two different types of tires based on different manufacturing technologies. Therefore, the conducted analysis is classified as a type of comparative analysis. It has been used to determine whether there are differences in the magnitude of the environmental impact generated during the life cycles of selected car tires produced based on two different technologies. The change of the production technology of traditional tires to ecological tires has taken place in the last few years and is mainly related to the materials and materials used in their production. The key issues of the conducted analysis concern environmental effects [36; 39]. The goal of the analysis was firstly to provide the description of the status quo of the industry (retrospective LCA), and secondly, to study the potential future consequences and determine recommendations for the development of more environmentally friendly solutions (prospective LCA). The procedure follows an LCA methodology whose purpose is to determine the extent of the negative environmental  
Figure 2: Four phases of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study. Own work based on [31; 39]. impact of a given object's life cycle. To that end, all four LCA phases were conducted. In the LCA analysis, two terms are particularly important: function and functional unit. In many cases, it is not possible to simply compare product A and product B as they may have different performance characteristics. The system boundaries are not always easy to define and the assumptions made during the process maybe not consistent, resulting in challenges when comparing between different results. Moreover, in most of the published cases of study, the LCA of a process, product, or service is retrospective (measured/estimated data) rather than prospective (forecasted data). Therefore, it does not typically relate to broad steps such as design, development, research, and education that can tremendously change the life cycle or even improving it by considering the prevention or reduction of manufacturing [38; 39]. In a general sense, the analysis serves to estimate the potential environmental burden associated with the way that a given product performs its specific function. If possible and justified, a time frame should also be included in the functional unit. The functional unit is the quantified performance of a product system that serves as the reference unit in the life cycle analysis. The reference flow is a measure of the outputs from processes in the product system required to perform the function expressed by the functional unit. If the LCA analysis covers the entire life cycle, it is recommended that the functional unit from the product use stage be considered, as it will most comprehensively express and capture the essence of the function [40]. Due to the fact that both the analyzed products in this study are passenger vehicle tires performing in the same area of applications, it was resolved that the function would refer to this aspect. It was defined as covering the distance of 50,000 kilometers over a period of 5 years in an average style of driving. The key issue investigated in the course of this analysis was to highlight the differences in the environmental burden between the two products that result from changes in the manufacturing process and raw materials consumed by their production processes. The geographic and time frame of the data was the same and it was the technological scope that was different. Given that the company providing the data is in Europe and has a well-established position on the market, the considered geographic range is also Europe. The time frame encompassed the same range because both traditional and ecological car tires are currently in continuous production.