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1 Introduction
Product life cycles and companies’ value chain dynamics are always complex. Value
chains now extend to far-away countries, linking a multitude of end-users with
numerous upstream suppliers and manufacturers. Production ineffi ciencies at each
step rapidly cascade through these chains, leading to unwanted products and wastes
accumulating along the way:
…only about 1 % of all the materials mobilized to serve America are actually made into
products still in use six months after sale, … (Hawken et al. 1999 )
Social conditions have gained greater visibility. The popular press throws a regular spotlight on deplorable labor practices and human rights conditions before a
product even reaches the consumer. With these expanded notions, the environmental impacts have become more diffi cult to understand by the general public and
many decision-makers. Our concerns have progressed from simple notions of waste
and resource depletion to encompass also subtle effects of trace chemicals (e.g.
endocrine disruptors) and the massive degradation of our life-support systems.
There is much to do in response to these pressures, from improving the performance
of individual products to a general overhaul of our entire production and consumption system. In both cases, we need a life-cycle approach to our management intervention if we are to do more than just tinker with the problem.
2 Looking into the Life Cycle Management Agenda
When referring to procedures within life cycle management (LCM), it is important
to be clear about our propositions. There is an evolution in language that includes
mention of life cycle, value chains, supply chains, materials cycles, circular fl ows
and so on. In part this refl ects the growth of life cycle type studies, processes and
evaluations, but it soon spills over also into operational management concepts.
Even the notion of ‘life’ of a material or product is not fi xed. And if we are concerned with both upstream and downstream aspects of company activities we can no
longer refer simply to ‘supply chain’, in which only the upstream focus is considered.
In this paper we have chosen to refer to the ‘value chain’ since it covers multiple
product life cycles of a company. Value chain can better include non-material and
non- environmental values such as social appreciation and cost as well as management
dimensions that are directly related to company activities and not to the engineering
aspects of a product. All these are important considerations as the notion of
sustainable consumption and production becomes more and more a question of
operationalization in a business context.
So how can we manage the value chain from a sustainability perspective? The
breadth of the issues of popular concern, together with the complex nature of the
materials chains from which they arise, leads to a serious management issues
(Balkau and Sonnemann 2011 ). As well as ensuring economic viability, managers
F. Balkau et al.
1 Introduction
Product life cycles and companies’ value chain dynamics are always complex. Value
chains now extend to far-away countries, linking a multitude of end-users with
numerous upstream suppliers and manufacturers. Production ineffi ciencies at each
step rapidly cascade through these chains, leading to unwanted products and wastes
accumulating along the way:
…only about 1 % of all the materials mobilized to serve America are actually made into
products still in use six months after sale, … (Hawken et al. 1999 )
Social conditions have gained greater visibility. The popular press throws a regular spotlight on deplorable labor practices and human rights conditions before a
product even reaches the consumer. With these expanded notions, the environmental impacts have become more diffi cult to understand by the general public and
many decision-makers. Our concerns have progressed from simple notions of waste
and resource depletion to encompass also subtle effects of trace chemicals (e.g.
endocrine disruptors) and the massive degradation of our life-support systems.
There is much to do in response to these pressures, from improving the performance
of individual products to a general overhaul of our entire production and consumption system. In both cases, we need a life-cycle approach to our management intervention if we are to do more than just tinker with the problem.
2 Looking into the Life Cycle Management Agenda
When referring to procedures within life cycle management (LCM), it is important
to be clear about our propositions. There is an evolution in language that includes
mention of life cycle, value chains, supply chains, materials cycles, circular fl ows
and so on. In part this refl ects the growth of life cycle type studies, processes and
evaluations, but it soon spills over also into operational management concepts.
Even the notion of ‘life’ of a material or product is not fi xed. And if we are concerned with both upstream and downstream aspects of company activities we can no
longer refer simply to ‘supply chain’, in which only the upstream focus is considered.
In this paper we have chosen to refer to the ‘value chain’ since it covers multiple
product life cycles of a company. Value chain can better include non-material and
non- environmental values such as social appreciation and cost as well as management
dimensions that are directly related to company activities and not to the engineering
aspects of a product. All these are important considerations as the notion of
sustainable consumption and production becomes more and more a question of
operationalization in a business context.
So how can we manage the value chain from a sustainability perspective? The
breadth of the issues of popular concern, together with the complex nature of the
materials chains from which they arise, leads to a serious management issues
(Balkau and Sonnemann 2011 ). As well as ensuring economic viability, managers
F. Balkau et al.