Health & Wellness
Sustainability 101: What are life cycle assessments?
Jan
Do you are feeling a bit misplaced when folks check with sure environmental sustainability matters and aren’t certain the place to begin in the case of studying extra? Sustainability 101 is a weblog collection which you can flip to for details about totally different environmental phrases which will come up at work, throughout discussions with associates, and even at your annual vacation gathering.
Each product has a narrative. From the uncooked supplies used to create it, to the vitality it consumes, to the place it finally ends up when it’s now not helpful— every stage impacts the surroundings. Life Cycle Assessments, or LCAs, assist us estimate that impression and establish areas for enchancment all through a product’s life cycle.
LCAs assist companies perceive the environmental footprint of their merchandise, processes, or providers throughout each stage of their life cycle. From vitality use to water consumption, LCAs reveal crucial knowledge that may drive extra sustainable choices.
What’s a Life Cycle Evaluation (LCA)?
A Life Cycle Evaluation evaluates the complete life cycle of a product, together with*:
- Uncooked materials extraction. One instance is sourcing minerals, metals, or pure fibers.
- Supplies and product manufacturing — reminiscent of changing supplies into completed merchandise.
- Transportation and distribution — together with the journey to shops, warehouses, and clients.
- Utilization — reminiscent of sources consumed when a product is in use.
- Finish-of-life — what occurs to a product after use: as an example, recycling, reuse, or landfill disposal.
LCAs estimate the environmental impression at every stage, offering an image of a product’s footprint. Companies depend on LCAs to establish the place the best impacts happen and discover alternatives to cut back their environmental impression.
* Be aware, the examples listed above usually are not exhaustive and are supposed to be illustrative.
What do LCAs estimate?
LCAs transcend simply evaluating a product’s carbon footprint to incorporate matters reminiscent of water consumption, vitality demand, useful resource depletion, waste technology, and air pollution. Let’s take the instance of a seemingly easy T-shirt to discover an instance of what may be measured:
World Warming Potential (GWP): LCAs estimate the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) that contribute to local weather change. For a T-shirt, these emissions happen at each stage—from producing cotton to powering factories and transporting the completed product.
Blue Water Consumption (Water utilization): LCAs estimate how a lot contemporary water is consumed throughout manufacturing and product use. For instance, producing sufficient cotton for a single T-shirt can require hundreds of liters of water, with extra water used for dyeing, washing, and cleansing the shirt over its lifetime.
Major Vitality Demand (Vitality consumption): LCAs consider the vitality sources used to provide, distribute, and energy a product. For a T-shirt, this consists of working textile equipment in factories and transporting the shirt across the globe.
Ecotoxicity (Waste and air pollution): LCAs estimate pollution that have an effect on air, water, and land. In T-shirt manufacturing, chemical dyes and by merchandise can probably pollute water sources, and the shirt itself may ultimately find yourself in a landfill.
Abiotic Depletion Potential (Useful resource depletion): LCAs estimate the usage of finite sources like metals, minerals, and fossil fuels. In our T-shirt instance, rising cotton depletes soil vitamins, whereas producing artificial fibers like polyester depends on fossil fuels.
By capturing this full vary of environmental impacts, LCAs empower companies to prioritize extra sustainable actions throughout their operations and product design.
Why LCAs matter for companies
LCAs could be a highly effective device for driving innovation and lowering environmental impression.
They will supply tangible advantages for companies aiming to satisfy their sustainability objectives. By figuring out probably the most resource-intensive phases of a product’s life, firms can goal environmental “hotspots” and implement adjustments reminiscent of utilizing renewable vitality to energy manufacturing websites or switching to extra sustainable supplies that cut back their total impression. These insights can drive innovation, enabling the design of merchandise which are extra energy-efficient, sturdy, and round with diminished resource-intensiveness and environmental impression.
For instance, it’s estimated that over 80% of product-related environmental impacts are decided in the course of the design part.1 LCAs will help evaluate options and perceive trade-offs when choosing parts, course of steps or disposal sorts. By integrating LCAs early within the design course of, firms can enhance sustainability outcomes.
Publishing LCA outcomes helps to reinforce company transparency and help environmental reporting. Sharing these experiences builds belief with clients, staff, buyers, and different stakeholders, whereas making certain compliance with world sustainability requirements and reporting frameworks.
How are LCAs carried out?
Conducting an LCA is a structured course of that includes gathering knowledge throughout each part of the product lifecycle, assessing environmental impacts, and deciphering the outcomes to help initiatives like net-zero objectives and round product design.
LCAs observe globally accepted requirements, such because the Worldwide Group for Standardization’s (ISO) 14040 and 14044. There are different requirements which are additionally primarily based on ISO’s framework.
Cisco’s strategy to Life Cycle Assessments
At Cisco, LCAs play a key function in our efforts to estimate and reduce the environmental impression of our merchandise.
Just lately, we introduced that Cisco has made these assessments publicly out there, sharing LCAs for plenty of our merchandise on the Sustainability Sources part of our web site. Cisco has already accomplished 23 LCAs throughout 8 enterprise items up to now two years and plans to publish extra assessments throughout key product traces in 2025. Sharing these outcomes helps transparency and demonstrates our dedication to measurable progress.
Whereas many expertise firms publish LCAs, Cisco is likely one of the first to provide them for networking tools, reminiscent of Catalyst switches. Cisco’s Chief Sustainability Workplace and Provide Chain Sustainability groups proceed to associate with our colleagues throughout the corporate to provide these experiences, and we plan to proceed publishing them as they change into out there.
LCAs are a part of how we strategy sustainability holistically. LCA knowledge helps our round design technique— to develop merchandise and sources which are reused, repurposed, and saved in circulation for so long as potential. By evaluating the whole lot from materials sourcing to end-of-life disposal, we achieve crucial insights that information our product design and innovation.
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