IB Design Technology Topic C3.2.1: Life-cycle Analysis Notes

A Life-Cycle Analysis Measures A Product's Whole-Life Environmental Impact As Data For Better Decisions

1. A life-cycle analysis, also called a life-cycle assessment (LCA), is a structured, internationally standardised way to work out a product's environmental impact across its whole life.
   1. It lets designers analyse that impact factually rather than by guesswork or marketing claims.
2. Analysing early matters because a large share of a product's environmental impact is effectively decided at the design stage: research suggests 80 to 90 percent of a product's committed costs and impacts are locked in there.
   1. Building an LCA into the design phase lets a designer cut waste and negative impacts before they are set, and greener products can also appeal to eco-conscious consumers and strengthen a brand.
3. Crucially, an LCA is a decision-support tool: it supplies the data, but it does not make the decision for you.

The Five Stages, Cradle To Grave

1. An LCA follows a product from 'cradle to grave' across five stages.
2. Each stage draws in inputs such as energy and raw materials and gives off outputs such as emissions and waste, and each carries its own environmental cost.
   1. Raw material extraction: mining, farming or harvesting; habitat destruction, soil pollution and heavy energy use.
   2. Manufacturing and production: refining and assembly, typically with high energy use, toxic waste and air and water pollution.
   3. Distribution and transport: moving goods around the world, generating carbon emissions from trucks, ships and planes.
   4. Use and maintenance: how the consumer uses the product, where electricity, upkeep and emissions add up over years of service.
   5. End-of-life disposal: landfill waste, recycling difficulties and toxic leakage once the product is no longer useful.

C3.2.2 works through the materials and energy at each of these stages in detail, and introduces cradle-to-cradle design.

What An LCA Measures

At every stage the analysis tallies the environmental impacts caused by those inputs and outputs, grouping them into a set of standard factors.

1. Because these impacts fall unevenly across the stages, an LCA lets designers compare products fairly over their whole life rather than judging a single stage.
2. A product that looks clean at one point may carry a heavy cost somewhere else, which is exactly the kind of trade-off an LCA is built to reveal.

Challenges And Limitations

1. For all its value, an LCA is difficult to do well.
2. Accurate results demand comprehensive data that can be hard to obtain, so estimates and assumptions creep in and introduce uncertainty.
3. The work is also complex, analysing many factors across several stages and calling for expertise in environmental science and engineering.
4. And defining the scope and boundaries is a challenge in itself, because decisions about what to include or leave out can noticeably change the result.

1. It is worth remembering what an LCA is for.
2. It does not hand back a solution or make the choice for the designer.
3. It provides the data on which a better-informed decision can be made, highlighting the areas most in need of attention.