Page 9 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

1.1 From the environmental concerns to a life cycle perspective 3
environment and the community as it is manufactured, used, disposed of, re-used, or
recycled. Products can be designed so they will have less environmental impact when they
are manufactured, used, and discarded. With a life cycle approach, companies are able to cal-
culate the full life cycle cost of the goods they purchase. This includes the point-of-purchase
price as well as the costs of transporting, storing, installing, cleaning, operating, repairing,
and eventually discarding those goods (Hall, 2019).
As we will explore in this volume, LCT is not just a methodology of analysis; we can con-
sider it a philosophy, a way of observing and reflecting, which leads to effective solutions for
overall improvement of the sustainability of products, processes, and systems. The life cycle
approach promotes relevant innovations in designing, producing and using products and
services, and it brings benefits to several stakeholders along the product supply chain; we
have summarized some benefits in Table 1.1.
To make choices addressed to life cycle approach, designers, manufacturers, and sup-
pliers need tools for assessing the sustainability of alternatives, in terms of preferability
and feasibility. The market too needs clear and quantified information, so that consumers
and buyers are able to evaluate the sustainability of alternative products and make informed

TABLE 1.1 Main benefits of the adoption of LCT to the stakeholders along the product supply chain.
Stakeholders LCT promotes LCT avoids
Designers Comprehensive, complete, and consistent analysis partial analysis of the environmental,
of all the factors that contribute to the impact of the economic, and social impacts associated
product with single phases of a product’s life
cycle
Designers and Identification of solutions that improve the overall Identification of solutions that fix one
manufacturers performance of the system, which includes the environmental problem but cause
performance of all the actors in the supply chain another unexpected or costly
environmental problem
Marketing staff Comparative evaluation of alternative business Inability to compare different design,
and designers solutions in design, production, purchasing, production, and organizational
distribution, use, and end-of-life alternatives
Consumers and Communication of clear and consistent information Communication of misleading
market and creating awareness in the market information and disorientation in the
market
Whole supply Improvement of entire systems, not single parts of Shift of problems from one life cycle
chain and systems stage to another, from one geographic
community region to another, and from one
environmental item to another
Whole supply Choices for the longer term and considering all Short term decisions that lead to
chain and related environmental and social issues environmental degradation
community
Local and Investment of economic resources to support more Wastage of investments in actions that
international sustainable projects do not improve the overall
governments environmental performance or create
inefficiencies