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Life Cycle Assessment: A Guide for Sustainability and Strategy Executives
Green Research, May 2011, Pages: 37
Leading companies see environmental sustainability not only as an issue of corporate responsibility but as a matter of strategy and an arena of competition. After scoring easy sustainability wins, these companies seek to improve their game with tools that put their sustainability programs on a quantitative, scientific footing. Rising demands from customers and regulators for improved environmental performance and increased transparency are driving a surge in interest life cycle assessment (LCA) as a tool for continuous improvement and innovation and a way of improving environmental performance while avoiding burden shifting and unintended consequences. Green Research believes that aggressive use of life cycle assessment and life cycle thinking will become table stakes at leading companies, and those that aspire to lead, over the next two to five years.
Key Questions Answered:
- What is life cycle assessment (LCA) and how does it relate to corporate sustainability?
- How will the LCA market and LCA practices develop over the next two to five years?
- How should corporations prepare now to take advantage of LCA?
- Who are the major LCA tool vendors, and how are they differentiated?
- How should companies select an LCA tool?
- Who are the leading LCA consultants and how should companies choose a consultant?
- How should companies build or boost their life cycle thinking capability?
Key Findings:
Interest in life cycle assessment is surging. By one measure, the number of scientific publications dealing with LCA has more than doubled in the last two years. LCA tool vendors and consultants are reporting sales growth of 30–40 percent annually. Companies are deepening their use of LCA and finding that costs go down with greater experience.
Investment and innovation are remaking the market for LCA tools. Low-cost, specialized tools for non-experts; open-source efforts; and improving databases will lower adoption barriers. Rising transparency expectations, the growth of LCA-based ecolabels and threats of regulation will drive greater adoption of LCA as well. Eighty-two percent of companies that did an LCA last year plan to do more in the coming 12 months.
Any company that makes or manipulates things must bring life cycle thinking into its organization to innovate and to compete. Companies should develop LCA competency even if they rely on consultants to perform studies. They should give preference to consultants and vendors with deep expertise in their industry. And before conducting an LCA they should involve key internal stakeholders to maximize the impact of the study.
Who Needs this Report?
- Sustainability executives
- Senior executives and strategists
- Sustainability consultants
- Environmental and strategy consultants
- Vendors of life cycle assessment tools and databases
- Vendors of CAD, ERP, procurement, carbon accounting and energy management systems
- Industry associations
- Non-governmental environmental organizations
- Universities and sustainability research centers
- Sustainability public relations and marketing agencies
Main Topics/Report Features:
- Life cycle assessment; life cycle costing; eco design; eco labels; environmental product declarations; sustainability
- Profiles of 21 LCA tool vendors
- Taxonomy of LCA consultants
- Survey of sustainability executives in North America and Europe
- Survey of LCA research institutions and universities in North America, Europe, Asia Pac and Africa
- 8 mini case studies
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