Session
MO.3.E || Life Cycle Metrics in Sustainable Finance and Business
Authors
Hanski, Jyri; Uusitalo, Teuvo; Barni, Andrea; Räikkönen, Minna; Vatanen, Saija; Fontana, Alessandro; Capuzzimati, Claudio
Abstract
Designers are in a position to substantially reduce the life cycle cost and the harmful environmental impacts of systems, products and services. Thus, they would benefit greatly from verified information on the material and energy use, emissions, as well as the life cycle costs and benefits for the alternative designs for the relevant ecosystem actors. Integrating life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) offers a way to demonstrate soundly the multidimensional impact of various circular designs. LCA and LCC offer a standard based systematic approach for evaluating various circular designs. LCA provides an assessment of the environmental impacts that a product or service has over its life cycles. Therefore, it enables the design of solutions with lower environmental impact. LCC provides an assessment of life cycle economic and cost implications of a product, service or process. It considers crucial design factors such as labour and unavailability costs that are not in focus of LCA. LCC and LCA are complementary approaches for optimising the circular design options from the environmental and economic perspective. This paper explores use cases, strengths and limitations for integrated LCA and LCC in design using a case-based research strategy. First, we review relevant literature for potential LCA and LCC use cases. Second, we organise workshops with companies to identify use cases related to design and assessment of digital solutions in the manufacturing sector.