What are the benefits of Life Cycle Analysis?
Taking an entire life cycle approach to reducing your organisations’ environmental impact can improve:
- Resilience
- Competitive Advantage
- Continuity
- Risk Management
- Supplier Choice
- Opportunity to innovate solutions and processes
The number of stages and details involved in a product’s life cycle can vary widely. At each point in a life cycle, there are decisions to be made that favour the minimisation of negative or, promote positive environmental outcomes.
These decisions can only be achieved when we assess the whole life cycle and analyse how those decisions influence each other. For example, decisions made upstream can impact and limit the possible solutions to problems downstream.
Whether it be via new design ideas, energy savings, or synergies in the supply chain, looking at the entire life cycle of a product allows us to view a new, environmental perspective on existing processes and reveal the potential for cost savings.
What is the Green Element approach?
Our team uses methods that align with PAS 2050 and the GHG Protocol Product Standard, and we can provide verification that our calculations adhere to these standards.
Your LCA results can be issued to clients, customers, and other stakeholders to promote your commitment to reducing your environmental impact and increasing sustainability. We can help use your LCA results to internally benchmark new designs, production methods, or supply chains, or externally benchmark your product against other alternatives on the market.
In addition to the LCA results, we can provide tailored recommendations and advice as to where you can focus efforts to have the biggest positive impact.
Steps to get started
The first steps for embarking on a product life cycle analysis are:
- Identifying the specific product/service and boundaries you want to assess (eg: cradle-to-cradle or cradle-to-grave).
- Once you have this, you can begin to map the specific supply chain for the product/service, including upstream and downstream transportation, manufacturing, and raw material inputs. Creating a supply chain map is essential to make sure you collect the right data, and not missing any key emissions sources.
