describes all effects (positive or negative) of the production, consumption and/or disposal of a product, service, policy, or project on the environment.
Environmental impact describes all effects (positive or negative) of the production, consumption and/or disposal of a product, service, policy, or project on the environment.
There are several common ways to quantify such effects, for example:
- life-cycle-analysis that lists all relevant inputs and outputs of a product or service of it's entire life span
- ecological-footprint that estimates how much land is needed for production and disposal
- carbon-footprint that focuses on the emitted greenhouse gases
- water-footprint which estimates how much water is used
For questions related to quantifying the impact please use the appropriate tag