From Product Life Cycle Check (w2001) Flashcards
What is the aim of a life cycle check?
- Give the company a tool to perform a preliminary LCA
- can guide the planning and optimizing of the further work of assessing environmental impacts from the company’s products.
- saving a lot of time for LCA practitioners
- shall provide a short-cut to the discipline of LCA by serving as the initial screening.
Who can preform a life cycle check?
- company employee,
- consultants
- anyone else wanting a short-cut and an easy start on the rocky path of LCA.
Does it require any technical knowledge to use the guide on life cycle check?
Yes,
- the user must have a technical or chemical background or knowledge corresponding to an engineer or equal education.
- Some knowledge of environmental issues is recommendable.
How many steps is in a life cycle check?
10 steps:
- Clarify the need and motivation
- Choose a product
- Schedule a meeting
- Get prepared for the meeting
- Have the meeting
- Define products service and functional unit
- Make an overview of the products life cycle
- Make a qualitative MECO assessment.
- Make a semi quantitative MECO assessment.
- Give the company guidelines for further interpretation and further actions.
Why is it crucial to define the products service?
Because LCA will always address comparisons. Nothing is environmentally friendly. But a product can be environmentally friendlier. An environmental assessment or an LCA is per definition always a comparison. To be able to compare to products/improvements has to provide the same service.
What happens if the services is not correctly defined?
The product assessment is invalid.
Who decides what the product service is?
The bottom line is that it is the customer who decides what the product service is, no-one else. (Product developer is only source of information).
When decribing the service of a product we use two types of properties, which?
Positioning (nice to have) and obligatory (need to have).
The functional unit is made up by three points, which?
- Quantity, 2. durability and 3. quality (customers has to find the compared solutions equal)
What is a secondary service?
A product most often also delivers other services than the service described in a functional unit, or has additional functions to the ones profiling the product. These are secondary services. Secondary services are market irrelevant.
What is the four main life cycle stages?
Materials, Manufacturing, Use and Disposal.
How do you know what to include in the lifecycle check (fu+secondary services)?
Does it result in changes in environmental impacts, then include. The rule is to include anything which could have an impact on the choices the company will make.
Which methodology was MECO developed as part of?
the EDIP-methodology.
What is MECO short for?
Materials, Energy, Chemicals and other.
What is in the MECO matrix apart from the MECO in the columns?
The 4 main lifecycle stages (Material stage, manufacturing stage, Use stage and Disposal stage), (A separate transportation stage can be added).
