Considering the life cycle of a product or system up and down its entire value chain can provide both internal and external stakeholders with a solid understanding of a product’s complete environmental impacts — from product development, sourcing, and manufacturing through distribution, marketing, use, and disposal. Exploring the resource use and emissions associated with an entire product life cycle can often reveal unexpected results in terms of where actual impacts occur.
One robust framework used to identify the areas of an end-to-end product life cycle that represent the biggest potential opportunities for environmental impact reduction is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA has long been used to quantify environmental impacts, but if used in the right way it can also support broader business objectives including:
- Enhance brand for competitive differentiation
- Improve product and process design decisions
- Inform procurement strategies and supplier engagement activities
- Identify cost-saving opportunities throughout the value chain
- Meet sustainability communications needs (i.e. product labeling, stakeholder outreach)
- Achieve compliance
Our Life Cycle Program focuses on applying LCA in a strategic way to meet your specific needs. We provide the following services:
- Life cycle scoping activities
- LCA studies (streamlined or fully ISO compliant)
- Verification
- Reviews
- Communication activities (e.g. brand enhancement, stakeholder engagement)