DEDICATED TO MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Understanding a life-cycle
approach
Learning unit B: exploring eco-efficiency
Did you know…
• Producing one ton of
recycled steel saves the
energy equivalent of 3.6
barrels of oil and 1.5 tons of
iron ore, compared to the
production of new steel?
• Producing paper using a
chlorine-free process uses
between 20 and 25 percent
less water than conventional
chlorine-based paper
production processes?
Learning objectives
• Recognize where products come from and where they
go after use – life-cycle
• Think about a product’s impacts on the environment
and economy throughout
– Qualify impacts
– Quantify impacts
Structure
Life-cycle – what is it?
Choosing boundaries and shifting issues
A life-cycle approach
Life-cycle assessment – one tool
Segue to life-cycle exercise
Worldwatch Institute, Worldwatch Paper 166: Purchasing Power: Harnessing Institutional
Procurement for People and the Planet, July 2003, www.worldwatch.org
Life-cycle stages
• Products can be evaluated through each stage
of their life-cycle:
• Extraction or acquisition of raw materials
• Manufacturing and processing
• Distribution and transportation
• Use and reuse
• Recycling
• Disposal
• For each stage, identify inputs of materials and
energy received; outputs of useful product and
waste emissions
• Find optimal points for improvement –
eco-efficiency
A life-cycle approach
• Ensures companies identify the multiple environmental
and resource issues across the entire life-cycle of the
product
• Knowledge of these issues informs business activities:
• planning, procurement, design, marketing & sales
• Rather than just looking at the amount of waste that
ends up in a landfill or an incinerator, a life-cycle
approach identifies energy use, material inputs and
waste generated from the time raw materials are
obtained to the final disposal of the product *
* Product Life-Cycle Analysis: Environmental activities for the classroom,
Waste Management and Research Center, Champaign, IL, 1999
Identifying issues at each life-cycle stage
Estimated amount of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides it takes to
produce the cotton for a conventional pair of jeans.
Source: “The Organic Cotton Site: Ten good reasons”
Pesticides
Finishing chemicals
Worldwatch Institute, Worldwatch Paper 166: Purchasing Power: Harnessing
Institutional Procurement for People and the Planet, July 2003, www.worldwatch.org
Life-cycle – identify the boundaries
Life-cycle – helps avoid shifting the issues
• Looking at the entire life-cycle helps ensure reducing waste
at one point does not simply create more waste at another
point in the life-cycle
• Issues may be shifted – intentionally or inadvertently –
among:
– Processes or manufacturing sites
– Geographic locale
– Different budgets and planning cycles (first cost)
– Environmental media – air, water, soil (MTBE)
– Sustainability dimension: economic, social, environmental
burdens
• Depends on “boundaries”
• Be conscious of what is shifted and to where!
• For example, MTBE…
Methyl tertiary butyl ether - MTBE
Methyl tertiary butyl ether - MTBE
US Geological Survey, http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/world/content/water1.html
Different products have impacts at different
life-cycle stages
Life-cycle – identify issues and costs
$ $ Disposal &
Post-
Disposal
Use
Acquisition Acquisition
Refrigerator A Refrigerator B Refrigerator A Refrigerator B
Purchase Price Price + Life-Cycle Costs
Refrigerator A appears cheaper Refrigerator B costs less overall
A life-cycle approach
• With a life-cycle approach, companies
employ the tools they need to:
• Reduce impacts across the life-cycle
• Capitalize on opportunities for their business
• Tools range from simple mapping of
life-cycle stages to comprehensive
quantitative assessments
Life-cycle assessment
• LCA is a tool to systematically measure the
environmental impacts associated with each
stage of a product’s life-cycle
Life-cycle assessment
Assessment of relative impacts across life-cycle – 3 issues are included
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Materials Production Use End-of-life
Energy NOx Waste
Life-cycle assessment
• Two attributes make LCA distinct and useful
as an analytical tool:
– whole system consideration of the total product
life-cycle
– presentation of tradeoffs among multiple
environmental issues
• LCA is quantitative
How to do LCA
1. Determine scope and system boundaries
– functional unit
– life-cycle stages
– define “unit processes”
2. Data collection
3. Analysis of inputs and outputs
4. Assessment of numerous environmental issues
5. Interpretation
– LCA principles and framework are standardized by the
Organization for International Standardization’s 14040
series of standards (ISO14040)
Conclusions – why take a life-cycle approach?
• Systems perspective
• Integrates environment into core business issues
• Efficiency
• Innovation
• Better return on investment – identify point of “biggest
bang for the buck” *
• Engage stakeholders – investors, customers,
employees
• Environment is not a cost center for the company, but
a business opportunity
* www.ciwmb.ca.gov/EPP/LifeCycle/default.htm
Conclusions – why take a life-cycle approach?
• Systems perspective
• Integrates environment into core business issues
• Efficiency
• Innovation
• Better return on investment
• Engage stakeholders
• Environment is not a cost center for the company, but a
business opportunity
– Look beyond the company’s gate
– Expose trade-offs and and opportunities
– Expand analysis of products, projects, policies and programs –
what is the function, what are the boundaries, what are the
impacts, where are the opportunities?
Hamburger exercise – life-cycle stages, inputs,
outputs and issues …
