ECODESIGN SERVICE
Life cycle analysis
Life cycle analysis (LCA) and supply chain management are tools that allow us as eco-designers to assess material and energy flows and environmental impacts, helping us to identify possible improvements to be made to the product.
According to the UNE_EN ISO 14040 standard, the Life Cycle is defined as the consecutive and interrelated stages of a product system, from the acquisition of raw material or its generation from natural resources to the final disposal in landfill.
The sum of all material and energy inputs and waste and emissions outputs constitutes the environmental impact of the product. A product generates environmental impacts at each and every stage of its life cycle. LCA takes a comprehensive approach, where possible cradle-to-grave, aimed at assessing resource consumption and the environmental and health effects of the systems and processes needed to obtain the products (goods and services). This comprehensive approach to LCA helps prevent solving an environmental problem in one phase of a process by generating a negative undesirable effect elsewhere, which may even be greater than the one avoided.