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The Beginning and the End? • 151

an example of how one Company has used a life
Cycle Perspective in Product improvement

The Procter & Gamble Company uses the life cycle perspective to improve
the environmental profile of their products through holistic innovation.
Limiting the analysis to energy usage, a study of their product lines revealed
a previously underappreciated value for energy in the use phase (i.e., the
heating of water) for the laundry detergents they produce.
According to their calculations, if every U.S. household used cold water
for laundry, the energy savings would be 70 to 90 billion kilowatt-hours
per year, which is 3% of the nation’s total household energy consumption.
These savings would translate into 34 million tons of carbon dioxide per
year not released into the environment, which is nearly 8% of the Kyoto
target for the United States.

LCA was recognized by Time magazine as the method behind calculat-
ing “Ecological Intelligence,” one of “10 Ideas Changing the World Right
Now” (March 23, 2009). LCA is the tool that is used to understand the
environmental impacts of the products we make and sell. The article says
that we can use LCA to “understand the global environmental conse-
quences of our local choices.”
So, what is behind this recent growing interest in LCA?
Growing global interest in the life cycle concept can be attributed to four
main drivers:

1. Global climate change concerns (or the “Al Gore Effect,” popularized
by his 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth)
2. Walmart’s planned development of a sustainability index for the
products they sell that is intended to include life cycle data
3. The building industry’s focus on green buildings and green products
(such as the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standard)
4. General interest by product manufacturers to be considered “green”
by their consumers

a BrieF history
LCA had its beginnings in the 1960s. Concerns over the limitations of
raw materials and energy resources sparked interest in finding ways to