Life cycle thinking is an approach to becoming mindful of how everyday life affects the environment. This approach evaluates how both consuming products and engaging in activities impacts the environment but it not only evaluates them at one single step, but takes a holistic
picture of an entire product or activity system.
This means when talking about a product and taking a life cycle thinking
approach, what is actually being evaluated is the impact of the
activity of consuming that product. This is because by consuming a
product, a series of associated activities are required to make it
happen. For example, the raw material extraction, material processing,
transportation, distribution, consumption, reuse/recycling, and disposal
must all be considered when evaluating the environmental impact. This
is called the life cycle of a product. The overall idea of making a holistic evaluation of a system's effect can be defined as life cycle thinking.
Life cycle thinking therefore also can be applied to the
consumption of other socio-economic activities such as watching a movie,
making arts and crafts, cooking dinner, or even doing homework. For
example, renting a movie, which seems to be a harmless activity, would
involve burning gasoline to drive to the video store, using electricity
to power the television and DVD player, and consuming power from the
remote’s batteries.
However, when trying to analyze quantitatively the effects of life
cycles, limits to evaluation are subject to what assessment approach is
taken because the chain reaction can become so complex that it could
require decades to figure out the life cycle of a specific process. Life
cycle thinking overall is a way to become more mindful of the
complexities of consuming products and engaging in activities and how
they affect the environment.
Goals
The goal of
life cycle thinking is to make people and companies more aware of how
their actions impact the environment in a holistic sense rather than a
one time pollution that comes as a direct result of using a product or
doing an activity at one specific time. Although it is nearly impossible
to undergo consumption of anything with no environmental impact, life
cycle thinking can help people make better alternative decisions to
mitigate their environmental impact. One of the goals of life cycle
thinking is to avoid burden shifting.
This is to make sure that reducing the environmental impact at one
stage in the life cycle does not increase the impact at other places in
the cycle. For example, plug in electric cars
reduce the amount of gasoline burned but they increase the amount of
electricity used which is usually generated by other polluting energy
sources such as coal. Life cycle thinking can also demonstrate the
benefits to technological innovation. For example, movies can now be
downloaded through television service providers and gaming devices which
eliminates the need to drive to a DVD rental location. By identifying
pollution costs, companies can innovate to mitigate their expenses while
consumers can make better alternative choices to mitigate their impact.
- Avoid burden shifting
- Reveal the complexity of the system triggered by an action which can have several negative environmental effects.
- Connect people more directly with the impacts of their life style and demonstrate how each action has a reaction which is sometimes asymmetrically worse for the environment.
- Make companies more mindful of environmental impacts of their operations.
- Help identify cost cutting possibilities
- Help identify less harmful operation strategies
- Provide people with a framework to make choices that over a life cycle have less environmental impacts.
- Create a culture focused on sustainability rather than short term gratification.
Sectors
Life-cycle thinking has applications in many sectors, such as the following:
Agriculture
The agriculture/food sector
is a big source environmental impacts that occur throughout the
lifetime of a product, from farm to table to disposal. Life-cycle
thinking works to reduce these impacts at all stages of food production.
Nutrition, health, well being, cultural identity and lifestyle are also
factors that should be addressed when looking at the impacts of choices
made in food production to ensure decreases in emissions and
environmental impact do not occur at the expense of consumer well-being.
Manufacturing
A
product Life Cycle Analysis involves all production and service
processes involved in the manufacturing of a product throughout its
life-cycle. This includes the production of materials needed to make the
product. Since the manufacturing sector is a big emitter of pollutants
and user of natural resources, pinpointing areas in which to decrease
environmental impact throughout the manufacturing process is a big part
of life-cycle thinking.
Energy
Drastic increases in atmospheric CO2 caused by the burning of fossil fuels, has led to the search for alternative energy sources like biofuels and renewable energy sources.
To analyze whether or not these alternative sources have overall less
environmental impact then conventional energy sources, life-cycle
analysis is needed. Life-cycle thinking is an intricate part of finding
new energy sources that have an overall smaller impact on the
environment.
Waste management
Life-cycle thinking and analysis can help reduce negative environmental impacts of waste generation and management. This includes looking at ways to reduce waste production, increase recycling, and dispose of waste in a more environmentally friendly
way. This is complicated by differences in benefits and burdens of in
different geographical regions and the fact that effects usually occur
over long periods of time. Furthermore, benefits and burdens of
different processes can occur in many different forms and can be
difficult to identify, quantify and compare.
Retail
Retail
often accounts for a significant portion of economies and thus can have
huge implications in terms of environmental impacts. The life cycle of a
product in retail would include the complete supply-chain of the
product, its use and disposal or end-of-life treatment.
Construction
There are many uses for life-cycle thinking in construction,
especially in terms of construction waste and waste management. Finding
better ways to recycle waste and prevent waste are important to reduce
negative environmental impact of the construction industry.
For construction products in Europe, a standardised methodology for building assessment considering Environmental Products Declarations (EPD) has been approved. The main standards are EN 15978 (buildings) and EN 15804 (products).
Transport
Finding alternative fuel sources are the biggest challenges to reducing negative environmental impact in the transportation
sector. Biofuels are becoming increasing popular as an alternative to
fossil fuels. Life cycle analysis can provide a fuller picture of the
extent alternative fuel sources reduce emissions and overall
environmental impact compared to conventional fuels.
Services
Service industries play a big part in adding environmental burdens, especially in terms of greenhouse gas emissions generated by travel and tourist industries. The service industry is expected to play a larger part in the modern economy as "dematerialization", or the replacement of manufactured goods by services in many firms, plays a bigger role in the economy.
Approaches
There
are many different approaches to life cycle thinking that all involve
looking at life cycle-generated impacts and ways to minimize these
impacts. An important component to life cycle approaches is avoiding
burden shifting, in other words, ensuring that improvements in one stage
are not achieved at the expense of another stage. Approaches of impact
measurement focus on decreasing environmental impact and resource use
throughout all stages of a process.
Commonly used approaches:
Life-cycle assessment
Life-cycle assessment
(LCA or life cycle analysis) is a technique used to assess potential
environmental impacts of a product at different stages of its life. This
technique takes a "cradle-to-grave" or a "cradle to cradle"
approach and looks at environmental impacts that occur throughout the
lifetime of a product from raw material extraction, manufacturing and
processing, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, disposal and
recycling.
Life cycle management (LCM)
Life cycle management
is a business approach to manage the total life cycle of products and
services. It follows the life cycle thinking that businesses, through
the activities they must perform, have environmental, social and
economic impacts. LCM is used to understand and analyze life cycle
stages of products and services of a business, identify potential
economic, social or environmental risks and opportunities at each stage
and create ways to act upon those opportunities and reduce potential
risks.
Life cycle costing (LCC)
Life cycle costing
(or life cycle cost analysis) is the total cost analysis of a process
or system. This includes costs incurred over the life of the system and
is frequently used to find most cost-effective means for providing goods
and services.
Design for the Environment
DfE Logo
Design for the Environment Program (DfE) was created in 1992 by the United States Environmental Protection Agency
and works to prevent pollution and the reduce the risks pollution
presents to humans and the environment. The main goals of the DfE are to
promote green cleaning, recognize safer industrial and consumer
products through safer product labeling, define best practices in
production and manufacturing, and identify safer chemicals for these
processes based on life cycle thinking. Having said this they must know
that the air pollution in USA has the mixing of liquid, solid, gaseous, odour and noise pollution which is dangerous for human being, animals and plants.
Product service system
Product service systems (PSS)
are sets of marketable products and services that work together to
fulfill a user’s needs. This new approach is a result of firms
realizing that services in combination with products can provide higher
profits and customer satisfaction then simply selling products alone.
Firms that use PSS work to find ways to maximize the use of their
product throughout its lifetime, using services to supplement its usage.
PSS has been seen to have smaller environmental impact than
traditional business models, as the focus on services has led to a
decrease in material production and consumption. This applies to life
cycle thinking because it involves looking at the life-cycle cost of a
product (i.e. maintenance and storage costs) for a consumer and reducing
that cost by providing services with the purchased good.
Integrated product policy (IPP)
Integrated
product policy works to minimize environmental degradation caused by
products by looking at all phases of a product’s life-cycle to pinpoint
where taking action is most effective. This also uses a cradle-to-grave
approach when looking at a product’s life. In addition, it is important
that policies avoid burden shifting and do not decrease environment
emissions at one stage of development at the expense of another. Policy
measures used to action upon recommendations include economic
instruments, substance bans, voluntary agreements, environmental
labeling and product design guidelines.
Applications
There
are multiple situations to which life cycle thinking can be applied,
including the everyday life of consumers, business and government
policy. By applying life cycle thinking to multiple aspects of the
community, consumers, businesses and governments can have a largely
positive aspect on the environment. This is true even if the steps
taken to apply life cycle thinking are small.
Consumers
Each
day consumers make choices as to which products they would like to use
based on their needs and the different brands available. However, most
consumers do not take into consideration the environmental impacts of
the product when they make their choice. For example, consumers do not
consider the product's energy usage, questionable labor conditions that produced it, hazardous waste from production, impacts on the ecosystem, or pollution of air or water.
Consumers can apply life cycle thinking in multiple different
ways with regards to their product choices in order to reduce their
impact on the environment. Firstly, consumers can choose to use products
from companies who take strides towards sustainability. Many companies
provide sustainability reports
that consumers can read to educate themselves about the companies they
buy from. By using life cycle thinking, consumers can choose a company
with smaller production impacts.
Primarily, consumer usage has the largest impact on the
environment throughout a product's life. By using life cycle thinking
this impact can be reduced. This would require educating consumers
to make better choices about product usage. This can come from the
companies who provide the service or product or from government
agencies. For example, consumers can ask themselves what impacts they
have while using the product. Ask do I really need to use this or is
there a more sustainable option, such as hang drying laundry on a nice
day rather than using a dryer. Consumers can educate themselves on how
to become more sustainable themselves through life cycle thinking rather
than relying on companies and the government to be sustainable for
them.
Businesses
Businesses
are responsible for many choices about their services and products each
day. By applying life cycle thinking, businesses can recognize the
potential impacts of their choices. They consider how each design and
manufacturing decision has an effect on the environment and how they can
make it more sustainable. Businesses not only take into consideration
how the product is made, but also how the product will be used and
disposed of by the user. Companies try to have a more sustainable
product by making products recyclable or reusable. They challenging part
is balancing cost and sustainable choices. Life cycle thinking allows
them to see the best sustainable options but is limited when it comes to
pricing these choices. Life cycle thinking for businesses entails
consideration of where to obtain raw material, how to manufacture the
material, transporting, distributing, using, and disposing of the
product. By looking at all of these phases businesses make the best
choices for themselves and the consumer for a lower impact on the
environment.
Governments
Government
plays a key role in life cycle thinking by establishing policies to
regulate environmental impacts. By applying life cycle thinking policy
makers can set standards that businesses and consumers need to meet.
They do so by gathering information as a baseline of the environmental
impact and use that to set goals based on knowledge from life cycle
thinking. They can also use trends from supply chains of different
businesses they regulate to determine where the biggest influence can be
made to majorly reduce the impacts of the businesses. Government
sectors can also use life cycle thinking to better educate consumers.
Requiring labels on products describing the impacts the product has and
how to use the products in order to reduce the impact can be an
important role for the government. Regulating supply chains and
consumers with policy is motivational as negative reinforcement. Life
cycle thinking provides a methodology for creating those policies in
order to have the most effective and most cost efficient means of
reducing environmental impacts.
In policy
Many
consumers, when making decisions on what to buy and what not to buy,
consider the environmental impact of the particular product. Policy
makers recognize this desire, and act to create policy that not only
helps consumers do this, but will do so while keeping a growing economy
in mind.
European policy
JRC logo
There are many aspects of life cycle thinking incorporated into European policy. The Sustainable Consumption and Production Action Plan
is a piece of legislation that aims to reduce environmental impact and
consumption of resources associated with the complete life cycles of
goods and services. On July 16, 2008 the European Commission
presented this legislation. This proposal suggests plans on how to not
only reduce the environmental impacts of goods and services, but also
encourages the use of more sustainable goods and production
technologies. This action plan also encourages the European Union to
seek out every opportunity to innovate in industry.
The Integrated Product Policy
is another legislative action that Europe has taken in order to
facilitate life cycle thinking. The Integrated Product Policy seeks to
minimize the environmental degradation caused from the manufacturing,
use and disposal of all products. This legislation looks at all aspects
of the product’s life cycle and takes action where necessary to reduce.
The Thematic Strategy on Sustainable Use of Natural Resources
was implemented on 21 December 2005 to reduce environmental impacts
associated with resource use and to do this in a growing economy. The
objective can be described as “ensuring that the consumption of
resources and their associated impacts do not exceed the carrying
capacity of the environment and breaking linkages between economic
growth and resource use”.
United States policy
While
the term "life cycle thinking" is not as prominent in United States
policy, there are considerations of the life cycle process throughout
governmental policies and programs. There are Environmental Product Declarations
that are used to incorporate life cycle thinking into companies and
organizations. They communicate to the consumer the environmental
performance of a product or system. These declarations are based on the
Life Cycle Assessment and once the assessment is complete a product or
system can be certified EPD.
The Environmental Protection Agency's program, Design for the Environment
works with individual industry sectors to compare and improve the
performance and human health and environmental risks and costs of
existing and alternative products, processes, and practices. DfE
partnership projects promote integrating cleaner, cheaper, and smarter
solutions into everyday business practices.
The Design for the Environment program is also equipped with a labeling
program. They allow safer products to carry these labels and they are
an indication to consumers that buying these products will be safer for
the environment and their families.
Also, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007
is a piece of legislation that incorporates life cycle thinking. While
this exact phrase isn't listed. This act includes sections on advanced
biofuels. In Title II of the act, it requires the creation of
Biomass-based diesel which is the addition of renewable biofuels to
diesel fuel and will reduce emissions by 50% as compared to petroleum
biofuel. In Title III improved standards will be implemented.
Life Cycle Thinking Product System
Importance
Since
life cycle thinking can be involved in the choices of individual
consumers, as well as policy makers and businesses, it is very important
that people are well informed about the subject and its uses.
Increasing awareness of the Life Cycle Analysis technique would allow
companies as well as individuals to consider multiple options for a new
product. After consideration of all available options, life cycle
thinking would encourage selection of the most sustainable option. If
more individuals practiced life cycle thinking when looking for new
materials or methods, they would be more aware of how the environmental
cost of ownership of products can be influenced by the running costs in
energy and consumables.
Life cycle thinking can help people find new ways to improve environmental performance, image, and economic benefits.
Since the decisions of global businesses and government organizations
have such a large impact on the environment, incorporating life cycle
thinking into their actions could greatly reduce negative environmental
effects and improve sustainability. Many businesses do not always
consider their supply chains or the "end-of-life" processes associated
with their products; likewise, government actions frequently consider
their own country or region and do not take into account the impact that
they could have on other regions.
Not only could life cycle thinking help the environment, it can
also save the company more money and improve their reputation. If a
company knows where their materials come from as well as where they will
end up after they have reached the end of their useful life, economic
performance could be further enhanced. Also, since presently so much
emphasis is placed on sustainable actions, the more a company shows its
concern and respect for the environment, the better its reputation will
be.
In a case study on laundry detergents, it was found that washing
clothes at lower temperatures resulted in energy savings and
improvements in several environmental indicators, like climate change,
acidification and photochemical ozone creation. Because the company
understood the importance of life cycle thinking, they made the decision
to conduct a Life Cycle Analysis to find the benefits of developing a
different laundry detergent. Not only did the new detergents reduce
environmental impact by decreasing energy consumption, it also
benefitted the consumer by reducing electricity bills and helped the
company by becoming a leader in the industry.
