Cycling, sustained

Since an assessment on the level of the material is not complete, an assessment on the level of products is required, which covers all life cycle phases, i.e. production, use and end-of-Ufe. Such a Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCS) should be the core of an assessment, while it has to be completed by a variety of other tools, which address e.g. compliance with local emission limits and consumer protection regulations. Legal compliance requires other efforts than an overall sustainability assessment. Since compliance is an issue companies have to... 

The following three subsections present the three inter-linked methods Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Engineering (LCE), and Life Cycle Sustainability. LCA will be introduced first since it is subject to an ISO standard and forms the classical core of life cycle studies. The further developments towards LCE and LCS are addressed in the following sections. Links to further reading and other information sources will be given in the text and in the list of references. 

Figure 14 shows the systematic inclusion of social aspects into the Life Cycle Sustainability approach at IKP. The original name LCWT (WT for Working Time ) was changed to LCWE. 

Fig. 14 Life Cycle Sustainability of products according to approach developed at IKP...

Fig. 15 Data collection on level of the unit process for complete Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment...

Wolf M-A, Kupfer T Baitz M (2001) Life cycle sustainability - R D of bio-source based polymers. Fifth conference on ecomaterials, HI, USA, November 2001 IKP, PE (1992-2002) GaBi 4 software system and databases for life cycle engineering. Copyright, TM Stuttgart, Echterdingen... 

Despite many studies of the effects of photooxidation on mechanical properties (such as Young s modulus, tensile strength, ultimate elongation, etc.. ..), there is very little information about these effects on fatigue life. For that reason, we studied the fatigue life of LDPE films as a function of UV exposure. The results are shown in Fig. 2 where logNp (Np being the number of cycles sustained before failure) is plotted vs. time of UV exposure. In this case the strain amplitude is 8% and the frequency (oj) is 10 cycles/mln. 

FIGURE 61.2 Information flows needed for a complete LCA. (From UNEP/SETAC LCI, Towards a life cycle sustainability assessment Making informed choices on products. Job Number DTI/1412/PA, Stockholm, 86p, 2011.)... 

This standard defines the interdisciplinary tasks that are required throughout a system s life cycle to transform customer needs, requirements, and constraints into a system solution. This document is intended to guide the development of systems (which include humans, computers, and software) for commercial, government, military, and space applications. The information applies to an enterprise within an enterprise that is responsible for developing a product design and establishing the life cycle infrastructure needed to provide for life cycle sustainment. 

The basic building blocks of a system are depicted in Figure 2—the system, its related productfs), the life cycle processes required to support the products, and the subsystems that make up the produces). Each life cycle process—development, manufacturing, test, distribution, operation, support, training, or disposal— is itself hke a system in that products should be developed to fulfill the purpose of the life cycle process. For example, a product should be manufactured. Manufacturing is a life cycle process. The products associated with the manufacturing life cycle process include special equipment, tools, fadUties, and production processes and procedures. The products that make up life cycle processes may also require Ufe cycle sustainment in that they may be required to be developed, tested, manufactured, distributed, operated, supported, trained, and disposed of. 

Silvenius F, Katajajuuri J, Grdnman K, Koivupuro RHS, Virtanen Y. Role of packaging in LCA of food products. In Finkbeiner M, editor. Towards life Cycle Sustainability Management. Dordrecht Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011. 

Table 14.1 Three Pillars of Life Cycle Sustainability...

Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment A Holistic Evaluation of Social, Economic, and Environmental Impacts... 

Being different from other approaches to assess fife cycle sustainability, PROSUITE methodology utiHzes five endpoint impacts, which reduce the risk of overlapping between three pillars of SustainabiHty. For example, the indicator of income, which can be used as a pathway to social SustainabiHty, brings better quality of life. At the same time, income indicator can be considered under the economic sustainabihty point of view [14],... 

THREE PILLARS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND THE NEED FOR LIFE CYCLE SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT... 

This study used the PROSUITE endpoint impact assessment method in which all impacts are categorized into five main impacts, including impact on human health, impact on social being, impact on prosperity, impact on natural environment, and impact on exhaustible resources. These impacts are then combined with normalization and weighting to obtain a single sustainability score (see the section Methodologies for Assessing Life Cycle Sustainability). 

In summary, LCSA is a hohstic approach to assess the life cycle sustainability of a product/service, which is inclusive for three pillars of sustainability. It overcomes the difficulty in quantifying social indicators to provide relatively indicative quantitative results. 

UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative. Towards a hfe cycle sustainability assessment making informed choices on products. 2011 [cited 2014 Aug 10]. Available from http //www.unep.org/pdf/UNEP LifecycleInit Dec FINAL.pdf... 

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