Implementing life cycle assessment in product development

Abstract

AbstractThe overall aim of this paper is to provide an understanding of the environmental issues involved in the early stages of product development, and the capacity of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) techniques to address these issues. The paper aims to outline the problems for the designer in evaluating the environmental benignity of a product from the outset, and to provide a framework for decision support based on the performance evaluation at different stages of the design process. The barriers that prevent product developers from using LCA are presented, as well as opportunities for introducing environmental criteria in the design process by meeting the designer's information requirements at the different life cycle stages. This can lead to an in‐depth understanding of the attitudes of product developers towards the subject area, and an understanding of possible future directions for product development.This paper introduces an Environmentally Conscious Design method, and presents trade‐offs between design degrees of freedom and environmental solutions. Life cycle design frameworks and strategies are also addressed. The paper collects experiences and ideas around the state‐of‐the‐art in eco‐design, from literature and personal experience, and provides eco‐design life cycle assessment strategies. The end result of this presentation is to define the requirements for performance measurement techniques, and the environment needed to support life cycle evaluation throughout the evaluation of early stages of a product system.