Life Cycle Climate Performance (LCCP) is an evolving method to evaluate the carbon footprint and global warming impact of heating, ventilation, air conditioning (AC), refrigeration systems, and potentially other applications such as thermal insulating foam.
It is calculated as the sum of direct, indirect, and embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated over the lifetime of the system “from cradle to grave,” i.e. from manufacture to disposal.
The embodied emissions include the climate forcing effects of the manufacturing processes, transport, and installation for the refrigerant, materials, and equipment, and for recycle or other disposal of the product at end of its useful life.
[1] LCCP is more inclusive than previous metrics such as Total Equivalent Warming Impact (TEWI), which considers direct and indirect GHG emissions but overlooks embodied emissions,[2] and Life Cycle Warming Impact (LCWI), which considers direct, indirect and refrigerant manufacturing emissions but overlooks appliance manufacturing, materials, transport installation and recycle.
[1] TEWI was developed by experts at Oak Ridge National Laboratory under contract from Allied Signal (now Honeywell) and was a step forward as a complement and enhancement of previous metrics like coefficient of performance (COP) and Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER), which consider energy use but not global warming potential (GWP) and emissions of refrigerants.
[2] LCCP was developed in 1999 by an expert working for the United States Environmental Protection Agency and serving on the Montreal Protocol Technology and Economic Assessment Panel (TEAP), who noticed that TEWI ignored the substantial emissions of unwanted hydrofluorocarbon (HFC)-23 byproducts of hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC)-22 production.
The byproduct emissions increased the climate forcing GWP of ozone-depleting HCFC-22 by up to 20%, depending on the efficiency of the chemical manufacturing process.
[4] In 2005, a joint committee of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the TEAP endorsed the LCCP metric for use in evaluating low carbon refrigeration and AC equipment.
LCCP was perfected for motor vehicle air conditioning (MAC) by a technical committee of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) (now SAE International) and named (Global Refrigerants Energy and ENvironmental – Mobile Air Conditioning – Life Cycle Climate Performance (GREEN-MAC-LCCP©).
[9] LCCP was perfected for stationary air conditioning applications by a technical committee of the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) chaired by experts from University of Maryland Center for Environmental Energy Engineering (UMD CEEE).
[6][10][11] EL-LCCP was developed for room ACs by experts from the UMD CEEE and the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD) working in cooperation with the Government of Morocco and guided by a technical advisory team and ad hoc committee of refrigeration and air conditioning engineers from Brazil, Costa Rica, China, France, and the United States.
Moroccan government partners included the Morocco National Ozone Unit; Ministre de l'Énergie, des Mines et du Développement Durable; and Agence Marocaine de l’Efficacité Énergétique (AMEE).