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Understanding A Life-Cycle Approach: Learning Unit B: Exploring Eco-Efficiency

This document discusses taking a life-cycle approach to understanding the environmental impacts of products and processes. It defines key concepts like life-cycle stages, system boundaries, and life-cycle assessment. The main points are: 1) A life-cycle approach looks at all stages of a product or process from raw material extraction through disposal or recycling to identify environmental and resource impacts and improvement opportunities at each stage. 2) It aims to avoid problem shifting by considering whole systems and accounting for impacts across the full life-cycle within defined boundaries. 3) Tools like life-cycle assessment (LCA) can quantify environmental impacts associated with each life-cycle stage and help compare trade-offs between different design, sour

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56 views

Understanding A Life-Cycle Approach: Learning Unit B: Exploring Eco-Efficiency

This document discusses taking a life-cycle approach to understanding the environmental impacts of products and processes. It defines key concepts like life-cycle stages, system boundaries, and life-cycle assessment. The main points are: 1) A life-cycle approach looks at all stages of a product or process from raw material extraction through disposal or recycling to identify environmental and resource impacts and improvement opportunities at each stage. 2) It aims to avoid problem shifting by considering whole systems and accounting for impacts across the full life-cycle within defined boundaries. 3) Tools like life-cycle assessment (LCA) can quantify environmental impacts associated with each life-cycle stage and help compare trade-offs between different design, sour

Uploaded by

manushakya_shakya
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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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 …

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