Page 14 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

8 1. Introduction. Life cycle thinking

Sustainability has three dimensions: economy, society, and environment. In the business
community the term “triple bottom line” was coined to explain the importance of achieving
sustainability; it implies that industry has to expand the traditional economic focus to include
environmental and social dimensions, in order to create a more sustainable business
(Elkington, 1997).
LCT expands the established concept of cleaner production to include the complete prod-
uct life cycle and its sustainability. Source reduction in a product life cycle perspective is then
equivalent to designing with sustainability principles in mind. In each life cycle stage there is
the potential to reduce resource consumption and improve the performance of products; in
order to succeed, all the stakeholders in the product chain have to be involved, using a col-
laborative approach and integrating efforts, with the same goal: sustainability. Overall, LCT
can promote a more sustainable rate of production and consumption and help us use our lim-
ited financial and natural resources more effectively. We can derive increased value from
money invested—such as wealth creation, accessibility to wealth, health and safety condi-
tions, and fewer environmental impacts—by optimizing output and deriving more benefits
from the time, money, and materials we use.
The full consistency of LCT with the sustainable development concept is therefore con-
firmed. Moreover, recent developments of the life cycle approach explicitly adopt sustainabil-
ity as a framework: international policies have adopted the “3Ps” of sustainability, which
stand for “people, planet, and prosperity”, and linked LCT to sustainable development
agenda (UN, 2002). Meanwhile, the scientific community has developed advanced models
of LCA methodology, including the triple bottom line perspective: thus, life cycle costing
(LCC) and social life cycle assessment (SLCA), as second and third pillars of sustainability,
are born, distinguishing economic and social impacts of product systems along their life cycle.
Moving to a more comprehensive assessment of sustainability, the life cycle sustainability as-
sessment (LCSA) is the most modern life cycle-based approach to evaluate scenarios for sus-
tainable futures and practical ways to deal with uncertainties and rebound effects with a
comprehensive vision (Guin ee, 2016).
Fig. 1.3 shows the possible link between LCT and sustainable development through the
three pillars of sustainability and the multidimensionality of LCT.
In 2015, the 193 member states of the United Nations adopted 17 goals to “end poverty,
protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development
agenda” by 2030 (UN, 2015a, b). To meet the goals and targets, sustainability must gain strong
prominence in decision making support for all economic actors along the supply chain who
are responsible for creating solutions for the future: all companies that design, create, supply,
and buy, all consumers that choose, buy, use, and dispose, all local governments and insti-
tutions that regulate, control, and support.
To support sustainable decisions, from small- to large-scale perspective, the market needs
comprehensive and robust tolls. To avoid the often-seen phenomenon of problem shifting,
where the solution to a problem creates several new problems, decisions must be taken with
a systems perspective. LCT aims to facilitate the application of life cycle knowledge in the
global sustainable development agenda in order to achieve the sustainable development
goals faster and more efficiently (Wulf et al., 2018). Through the life cycle approach, we rec-
ognize how our choices influence what happens at each phase, so we can balance trade-offs
in economic and environmental consequences caused by our choices.