Thomas Swarr

From LCA to Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment: concept, practice and future directions

More than 1 year ago, the subject area on Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment has been launched (Zamagni 2012) in order to provide a virtual place in which scientists from different disciplinary fields could discuss the main challenges in addressing sustainability with a life cycle perspective. The challenge has been taken on also by the editors of three subject areas that deal with sustainability from complementary angles—Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC), and Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA). The result was the launch of a call for papers for a special issue on LCSA, whose results we are glad to present. Our initiative took its point of departure from two facts: (1) sustainability has become quite a keyword in any decisioncontext situation and the scientific community has the duty to provide its contribution in demonstrating what might be sustainable and how to measure it with a scientific approach; (2) the life cycle approach is considered to provide a valuable support in integrating sustainability into the design, innovation, and evaluation of products and services, as can be seen in several environmental policies at the European and international level in which life cycle thinking represents the backbone. As far as the timely and challenging aspects of sustainability are concerned, the EU has mainstreamed sustainable development into a broad range of its policies, such as the initiatives against climate change and the promotion of a low-carbon economy. The European Council (2009) confirmed that sustainable development remains a fundamental objective of the European Union under the Lisbon Treaty. Moreover, as emphasized in the Presidency’s report on the review of the Union’s Sustainable Development Strategy, the strategy will continue to provide a long-term vision and constitute the overarching policy framework for all Union policies and strategies (Council of the European Union 2009). Sustainability is a concept that needs to be addressed not only at the policy level but also in the business context: many companies have included sustainability in their mission, also driven by an increasing demand for sustainable products by more aware consumers. Although the policy and the business context deal with sustainability in different ways, given the diversity of needs, a common element for both is the complexity entailed by the assessment. Such a complexity is due to the followingmain aspects, as pointed out byHeijungs et al. (2010)

Life cycle inventory improvement in the pharmaceutical sector: assessment of the sustainability combining PMI and LCA tools

Pharmaceutical chemicals are complex, high value added products that typically impose significantly greater impacts on the environment per kilogram compared to basic chemicals. A variety of green metrics have been developed to guide the design of chemistries and processes that are more sustainable. Among these, Process Mass Intensity (PMI) was selected by the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable as the key parameter to express sustainability. However, researchers were concerned that these metrics could miss relevant factors that would be addressed by a more comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Lack of inventory data for many chemicals poses a significant barrier to more extensive implementation of LCA for pharmaceuticals. A cradle-to-gate LCA of Viagra™ is used to present a practical approach to construct inventories using patent and literature data. Details of the improved inventory data were presented for four chemicals to illustrate the methodology and highlight the importance of considering out-sourced processing of reagents used in pharmaceutical synthesis. A more comprehensive impact assessment was conducted using ReCiPe v1.11 at both midpoint and endpoint levels. A comparison of two synthesis routes rated them well against results from the simpler green metrics. An area for future work is to address the lack of characterization factors for toxicity and other impact categories for many chemicals.

Life Cycle Management Capability: An Alternative Approach to Sustainability Assessment

There has been steady progress advancing life cycle assessment methods. However, application of LCA in business decision making has lagged. UNEP and SETAC are collaborating on development of a life cycle management capability maturity model to address this gap, particularly in small-to-medium sized enterprises (SME) with limited life cycle experience. The model provides a structured sequence of improvement actions that can speed organisational learning and deliver near- term business results. The framework also complements existing efforts to develop quantified sustainability performance measures by building the capacity of lower tier suppliers to make effective decisions based on their understanding of the local situation and according to their priorities. This should ensure the quality of the data provided as well as help further the development of sustainability indicators.

Building Organizational Capability for Life Cycle Management

Corporations are being pressured to integrate life cycle thinking and practices across global supply chains. The UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative has been developing a life cycle management capability maturity model (LCM CMM) to help mainstream life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle management (LCM). Pilot projects in small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to apply the model showed the companies were able to identify and implement projects that delivered both near-term business value and developed the organizational capability for LCM. A key benefit of the life cycle approach was enhanced cross-functional integration and collaboration with suppliers and customers. The projects did identify a need for more guidance on how to interpret the business impact of environmental concerns and to align LCM efforts with company business strategy. Collaborative networks where more advanced companies can share their knowledge are a key enabler, particularly in developing economies.