Operationalization of life cycle engineering

• Published in: Resources, conservation and recycling conservation and recycling, 2023-03, Vol.190, p.106836, Article 106836
• Main Authors: Kara, Sami, Herrmann, Christoph, Hauschild, Michael
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Absolute sustainability; Extended IPAT identity, Industrial ecology; Life cycle engineering; Planetary boundaries
• ISSN: 0921-3449; 1879-0658
• DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2022.106836

•We proposed a structured approach to operationalise Life Cycle Engineering with respect to planetary boundaries.•We developed disaggregated IPAT equation to generate mitigation strategies.•We applied the proposed approach to the concrete industry to evaluate by using various mitigation strategies if the concrete industry can reduce it is environmental footprint until 2050 to stay within the allocated environmental budget.•The result indicate that supply and demand side need to be managed concurrently for cement industry to meet its 2050 targets. Life cycle engineering (LCE) was introduced in the early 1990s with a main focus on designing products to reduce their environmental impact in a life cycle perspective. In the meantime, the world has seen a dramatic increase in environmental pollution despite the significant eco-efficiency improvement of individual products and services, highlighting the gap between bottom-up LCE activities and top-down sustainability concepts such as planetary boundaries that reflect the limited carrying capacity of the climate- and ecosystems of the world. This accelerates the need to address environmental sustainability as an absolute in the engineering of products and services, and this paper introduces a structured approach to bridge the gap between the top-down and bottom-up perspectives. Building on a disaggregated IPAT identity, the approach supports identifying potential mitigation options as input for LCE activities. A case study on cement products is used to demonstrate the application of the approach.