Chapter 21
Progress for Life Cycle Sustainability
Assessment by Means of Digital Lifecycle
Twins — A Taxonomy
Theresa Riedelsheimer, Sabrina Neugebauer, and Kai Lindow
Abstract To understand and optimize the impact of a product along its lifecycle,
the consideration of social, economic and environmental factors is of increasing
interest for customers and regulating institutions. In this context, Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) is used to monitor and understand the trade-offs of the
three sustainability dimensions. Today, LCSA still faces major challenges, such as
availability, actuality and validity of data or consistent and appropriate measures
to support Design for Sustainability. New technological innovations may support
the enhancement of the methodology. In the background of a digitized product and
service lifecycle, especially Industry 4.0 technologies, Digital Twins and the integration of Artificial Intelligence may solve data and feedback challenges through new
ways of data collection, transfer, validation and intelligent analysis. This paper aims
at exploring this potential of new technological innovations for an enhanced LCSA
of capital goods and durable consumer goods as well as related services and proposes
a taxonomy. Therefore, a literature review to identify existing digital solutions and
research gaps is established. For the identified gaps, a new concept, the Digital Lifecycle Twin for LCSA is presented. The authors address both, the positive but also the
negative implications put on the LCSA framework from a sustainability perspective.
Ultimately, these findings will contribute to the enhancement of the LCSA methodology as well as to the design of a support system to enable environmentally and
socially sound design of products and services.
Keywords Life cycle sustainability assessment · Digitization · Digital solutions ·
Digital (lifecycle) twins · Artificial intelligence
T. Riedelsheimer (B) · K. Lindow
Department of Virtual Product Creation, Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design
Technology (IPK), Berlin, Germany
e-mail: theresa.riedelsheimer@ipk.fraunhofer.de
S. Neugebauer
Institute of Sustainability in Civil Engineering (INaB), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen,
Germany
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
Y. Kishita et al. (eds.), EcoDesign and Sustainability II, Sustainable Production, Life
Cycle Engineering and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6775-9_21
329
Progress for Life Cycle Sustainability
Assessment by Means of Digital Lifecycle
Twins — A Taxonomy
Theresa Riedelsheimer, Sabrina Neugebauer, and Kai Lindow
Abstract To understand and optimize the impact of a product along its lifecycle,
the consideration of social, economic and environmental factors is of increasing
interest for customers and regulating institutions. In this context, Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) is used to monitor and understand the trade-offs of the
three sustainability dimensions. Today, LCSA still faces major challenges, such as
availability, actuality and validity of data or consistent and appropriate measures
to support Design for Sustainability. New technological innovations may support
the enhancement of the methodology. In the background of a digitized product and
service lifecycle, especially Industry 4.0 technologies, Digital Twins and the integration of Artificial Intelligence may solve data and feedback challenges through new
ways of data collection, transfer, validation and intelligent analysis. This paper aims
at exploring this potential of new technological innovations for an enhanced LCSA
of capital goods and durable consumer goods as well as related services and proposes
a taxonomy. Therefore, a literature review to identify existing digital solutions and
research gaps is established. For the identified gaps, a new concept, the Digital Lifecycle Twin for LCSA is presented. The authors address both, the positive but also the
negative implications put on the LCSA framework from a sustainability perspective.
Ultimately, these findings will contribute to the enhancement of the LCSA methodology as well as to the design of a support system to enable environmentally and
socially sound design of products and services.
Keywords Life cycle sustainability assessment · Digitization · Digital solutions ·
Digital (lifecycle) twins · Artificial intelligence
T. Riedelsheimer (B) · K. Lindow
Department of Virtual Product Creation, Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design
Technology (IPK), Berlin, Germany
e-mail: theresa.riedelsheimer@ipk.fraunhofer.de
S. Neugebauer
Institute of Sustainability in Civil Engineering (INaB), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen,
Germany
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
Y. Kishita et al. (eds.), EcoDesign and Sustainability II, Sustainable Production, Life
Cycle Engineering and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6775-9_21
329