Page 182 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Prospects for life cycle assessment development and practice in the quest for sustainable consumption

behavioural and social factors. Given such a range of influences, under what conditions do 169
we switch from a high impact to a low impact product or service, and when can LCA safely
assume there will be no rebound effect? Moreover, what may prompt consumers to choose
not to purchase or use a product? What would this mean for functional units of compari-
son? While literature exists on well-being and stated preferences, more intellectual bridges
need to be built between the LCA or impact assessment literature and the behavioural and
sociological literature.
With respect to functional units in LCA, products or services are typically compared on
the basis of some proportional or comparable service outcome. Thus, two tables may be
compared on the basis of ‘ability to support, per metre squared area, per year of design life’.
However, comparing two tables by size says little about their function as representations to
ourselves and others. In properly seeking to compare services rather than things, the true value
in terms of well-being or quality of life outcomes of that service must be known, on a suitably
comparable scale. What LCA cannot afford to do is follow the flawed utilitarian logic that
utility can be measured by the market or by acquisition of more goods, since there is little cor-
relation between increased income and reported well-being (Ingelhart and Klingemann 2000).
Lapham (1988) concludes from extensive research in the United States of America (USA) that
no-one ever has enough: typically they require a doubling of salary to make them comfortable
(irrespective of their current salary). Only by valuing a product or service in terms of ‘needs
met’ can comparisons be made on a like-for-like basis – yet there is an entire literature illus-
trating that the line between need and desire is blurred (e.g. Princen et al. 2002). Armed with
an increasing awareness of the dynamic and moveable nature of functional utility, LCA practi-
tioners and researchers may be increasingly able and willing to experiment with different
‘functional units’ scenarios in LCA research.
Undoubtedly, sustainable consumption provides fundamental challenges to society; which
extend well beyond the scope of any single technique. A multitude of interventions is required,
and LCA can contribute – for example, there are opportunities for developing more direct
consumer-LCA information interaction. This may occur through established eco-label systems
of various sorts, or through new initiatives that enable consumers to access clear, transparent
and reliable LCA information without creating information overloading. For example, using
mobile digital interfaces integrated with barcodes, LCA information could be as instantly
available as price at the supermarket shelf. It is an indication of the pace of change both in
technology and social norms that while such developments would have been widely considered
to be unlikely in 2005, they now appear quite likely well inside the 2020 timeframe.

12.5 Conclusion: towards reflective, integrated practice
LCA can make a contribution to one of the greatest challenges of modern civilisation: the tran-
sition to sustainable consumption. It is no secret that significant shifts are required – in tech-
nologies, in decision-making and in thinking. Since the industrial revolution we have tied our
endeavours to extracting more materials and energy; now we have to learn how to leave fossil
fuels in the ground (at least until we learn how to capture carbon economically). At a time when
society struggles with the need for a paradigm shift, LCA is rapidly maturing as a powerful
technique for revealing the environmental loads that lie behind our products and services.
LCA has faced a number of challenges as a relatively new technique with significant data
needs and other facets that require it to obtain ‘buy-in’ from a wide range of stakeholders and
professionals, including designers, technicians, managers and policy makers. The unique
approach of LCA – and its tendency to produce counter-intuitive and even controversial results
and new perspectives – is both a strength and a challenge. The positive outcome is increased

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