BUILDING TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE

Life-Cycle Assessment of Energy and

Environmental Impacts of LED Lighting
Products
Light-emitting diode (LED) products for general illumination have the
potential to save energy and improve lighting quality and performance in
comparison to many conventional lighting technologies. However, in order
to accurately gauge the full energy and environmental impacts of any
lighting product, its materials and energy resources must be evaluated over
its entire life-cycle.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) conducted a three-part study

to assess the total life-cycle impact of LED screw-based replacement
lamps in relation to two comparable lighting technologies traditionally
used in residential homes: incandescent lamps and compact fluorescent
lamps (CFLs). This life-cycle assessment (LCA) study considers not only
use, but also manufacturing, transport, and disposal, and is the most
comprehensive study of its kind for LED products, breaking new ground
in our understanding of how lighting affects the environment. The full
reports for all three parts of the study are available online at www.ssl. Part 1: Review of the Life-
energy.gov/tech_reports.html. Cycle Energy Consumption
of Incandescent, Compact
Fluorescent, and LED Lamps
General Life-Cycle Stages of a Product or System (Part 1 report) (February 2012)
Compared the total life-cycle
energy consumed by these
products, based on existing LCA
literature.

Part 2: LED Manufacturing and

Performance (June 2012)
New LCA that provided more
detail on the LED manufacturing
process and evaluated a variety of
Recycled environmental impacts in addition
Material to energy use.

Part 3: LED Environmental Testing

(March 2013)
Disassembled and chemically tested
product samples to determine
whether potentially toxic elements
are present in concentrations that
exceed regulatory thresholds for
hazardous waste.
2 BUILDING TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE

PART 1: Review of the Life- Number of Lamps Needed to Reach Equivalence to 20 Million Lumen-Hours
Cycle Energy Consumption
(Part 1 report)
of Incandescent, Compact
Fluorescent, and LED Lamps
This study was based on 10 existing light-
ing-product LCAs that included academic
publications as well as manufacturer and
independent-research reports. It examined
three life-cycle phases—manufacturing,
transportation (from factory to retailer),
and use—comparing the energy consumed
and considering how that consumption
might change in the future for LED lamps.

Key Findings
• The average life-cycle energy con-
The three lamp types considered in Part 1 are not equivalent in terms of their
sumption of LED lamps and CFLs was
lumen output and lifetime. So in order to compare apples with apples, 20 million
similar, and was about one-fourth the
consumption of incandescent lamps. lumen-hours of lighting service was used as a functional unit, with life-cycle
energy estimates multiplied by the number of lamps needed to reach this value.
• If LED lamps meet their performance
targets by 2015, their life-cycle energy
is expected to decrease by approxi-
mately one-half, whereas CFLs are not PART 2: LED Manufacturing and The comparison looked at the LED lamp
likely to improve nearly as much. Performance as it was in 2012 and also projected what
This new LCA study compared the it might be in 2017, taking into account
• The “use” phase of all three types of
environmental impact of an LED some of the anticipated improvements in
lamps accounted for 90 percent of total
lamp, an incandescent bulb, and a CFL LED manufacturing, performance, and
life-cycle energy, on average, followed
from the beginning to the end of their driver electronics.
by manufacturing and transport. Most
of the uncertainty in the life-cycle life-cycles—including manufacturing,
shipping, operation, and disposal. In Key Findings
energy consumption of an LED lamp
was found to center on the manufac- addition, it was the first public study to • The energy these three lamp types
turing of the LED package. Various consider the LED manufacturing process consumed in the use phase constituted
sources estimated this at anywhere in depth. their dominant environmental impact.
from 0.1 percent to 27 percent of life-
cycle energy use.

Life-Cycle Energy Consumption of Incandescent CFL and LED Lamps (Part 1 report)

16,000

Transport 14
(Million BTU/20 Million Lumen-Hours)

14,000 Bulk Material Manufacturing

(MJ/20 Million Lumen-Hours)

LED Package Manufacturing 12

12,000 Use
Energy Consumption
Energy Consumption

10
10,000

8
8,000

6
6,000

4,000 4

2,000 2

0 0
Incandescent Halogen (use only) CFL LED (2011) LED (2015)
~ 22 lamps ~ 27 lamps ~ 3 lamps ~ 1 lamp ~ 0.6 lamps
BUILDING TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE 3

Life-Cycle Assessment Impacts of the Lamps Analyzed (Part 2 report)

In order to evaluate the 15 impact measures of interest across the four lamps considered, “spider” graphs were prepared.
Each category is represented by a spoke in the web, and the relative impacts of each lamp type are plotted on the graph. The
lamp type having the greatest impact of the set analyzed (incandescent, in this case) defines the scale, represented by the
outer circle at the greatest distance from the center of the web. The other products are then normalized to that impact, so the
distance from the center denotes the severity of the impact relative to the incandescent lamp.

• Because of its low efficacy, the incan- • The light source that performed the Because the lamps examined in the study
descent lamp was found to be the most best was the LED lamp projected for were ground up as part of standard test
environmentally harmful of the three 2017, whose impacts are expected to be procedures, thereby exposing encapsu-
types of products, across all 15 impacts about 50 percent lower than the 2012 lated materials, the results represent a
examined in the study. LED lamp and 70 percent lower than worst-case scenario for the elements in
the CFL. question leaching into groundwater from
• The LED lamp had a significantly these lamps.
lower environmental impact than the
incandescent, and a slight edge over the PART 3: LED Environmental Key Findings
CFL. Testing • The selected models were generally
This study focused on end-of-life found to be below restrictions for
• The CFL was found to be slightly more disposal and involved the disassembly of Federally regulated elements.
harmful than today’s LED lamp on lamps, using standard testing procedures
all impact measures except hazardous from the U.S. Environmental Protection • Nearly all of the lamps (regardless
waste landfill, because of the LED Agency and the State of California to of technology) exceeded at least one
lamp’s large aluminum heat sink. As see whether any of 17 potentially toxic California restriction—typically for
the efficacy of LED lamps continues elements were present in concentrations copper, zinc, antimony, or nickel.
to increase, aluminum heat sinks are exceeding regulatory thresholds for
expected to shrink in size—and recy- hazardous waste. A total of 22 samples, • Examination of the components in the
cling efforts could reduce their impact representing 11 different models, were lamps that exceeded these thresholds
even further. tested. revealed that the greatest contributors
4 BUILDING TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE

were the screw bases, drivers, ballasts,

and wires or filaments. Percentage of CA Total Threshold Limit Concentration (Part 3 report)

• Concentrations in the LED lamps were

comparable to concentrations in cell
phones and other types of electronic
devices, and usually came from compo-
nents other than the LEDs themselves.

CONCLUSIONS
The energy that incandescent, compact
fluorescent, and LED products consume
while in use dominates not only the total
energy consumed over their entire life-
cycle, but also their total environmental
impact. Because of this, continued focus
on LED efficacy targets and market
acceptance is appropriate.

The greatest environmental impact after

energy-in-use for the LED sources comes
from manufacturing the aluminum heat
sink, which would be reduced in size
as the efficacy increases and more of
the input wattage is converted to useful
light (instead of wasted as heat). The
would result from replacing an incandes- that the recycling of aluminum would be
heat sink is the main reason the LED
currently exceeds the CFL in the category cent lamp with a more efficient product. particularly effective in reducing the life-
of hazardous waste to landfill, which Reductions on the order of 3 to 10 times cycle impact of LED lighting products,
is driven by the upstream energy and are possible across the indicators by many of which contain aluminum heat
environmental impacts from manufactur- transitioning the market to new, more sinks. For many such products, the value
ing the aluminum from raw materials. efficacious light sources. of the recovered aluminum might even
Recycling efforts could further reduce offset the cost of recycling. The Part 3
Even though the impact of LED lamps findings provide further impetus for lamp
the adverse impact of manufacturing the
over their entire life-cycle compares recycling, to ensure compliance with
aluminum heat sink.
favorably to CFLs and incandescent stringent regulations for the disposal of
Far more important than the minor lamps, recycling will likely gain impor- hazardous waste.
relative differences between the current tance as consumer adoption increases.
LED lamp and the CFL is the significant Part 2 of the study conservatively
reduction in environmental impacts that assumed minimal recycling and indicated

For More Information

For more information or to download full
reports, see ssl.energy.gov/tech_reports.
html.

April 2013
Printed with a renewable-source ink on paper containing at
least 50% wastepaper, including 10% post-consumer waste.