Have you Assessed your Lifecycle yet? Deloitte Explains LCA
August 7th, 2009 - "Lifecycle Assessment: Where is it on your Sustainability Agenda?" asks Deloitte’s latest whitepaper.
As part of a management approach that values sustainability, a solid LCA can help a business to understand their impact, set goals and strategies which cut to that core, and communicate them clearly to stakeholders and regulators.
On the heels of Wal-Mart’s sustainability index, retailers will need to know all the facts about their own products as well as the products and practices of their supply chains. While LCA can be "time consuming and technically challenging", it can result in real benefits when applied strategically. Designing a sustainable product or system requires a holistic, lifecycle view of the business and the heavily numbers-based LCA can be a way to see the whole picture through the details.
According to Deloitte’s research, 95% of shoppers "would buy green" if they had the right information and a good product. Deloitte further predicts that the Wal-Mart index "is the first step of a collaborative effort involving dozens of retailers, suppliers, academics, NGOs, and other partners that aims to create a global set of standards for measuring and communicating the sustainability impact of products."
This common database would allow product and system designers to have clearer environmental constraints and would also give consumers a reliable and comparable source of information.
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