Quantifying the environmental impacts of labor

Quantitative values for the environmental impacts of labor are needed to improve the accuracy and expand the decision making capabilities of life cycle analysis. We present a method of calculating the environmental impacts of a worker-hour, finding one worker-hour of industrial labor in the U.S. corresponding to 58 MJ of primary energy use, 82 gallons of water use, and 4.6 kg of CO
₂
equivalent emissions.