Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) looks at total pollutant emissions and energy and resource consumption over the life of a product, from manufacture through use to final disposal. Standard LCA methods do not take into account emissions related to accidents (in particular, to accidental fires) nor resource consumption in replacing products lost in such incidents. In order to carry out a Life Cycle Analysis comparing products treated with flame retardants and untreated products, the standard LCA methodology has to be adapted to statistically take into account the on average higher number of fires involving non flame retarded products.

Such studies have been carried out comparing flame retarded and non fire safety treated TV sets and furniture, by SP and IVL Sweden. These studies look at the environmental emissions over the whole life cycle, including the consequences of accidental fires (emissions from the fire, replacement of property damaged or destroyed), and also assess the overall health implications of these emissions using a simplified cancer risk model.

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