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• Reducing a product’s resource use and emissions to the environment, and
improving its social and socio-economic performance throughout its life cycle
• Enabling consumers to choose more sustainable products
• Information policy to optimize trade-offs
• Infl uencing and validating choices for disruptive improvements, such as new
economic models or radical technology, to move towards possibilities to regenerate
the system and not only be “less bad”, but towards “more good”
However, for life cycle approaches to make a signifi cant contribution to sustainability, they need to be used in a massive and systematic way, especially by companies and businesses within a framework and infrastructure provided by governments.
Success will be when there is a broad understanding of the concepts around life
cycle thinking by the general public and when these concepts are integrated into
decisions by organizations in a systematic way through life cycle management (for
example, integrated into standard design software or purchasing criteria).
3 Moving Towards Better Collaboration
and Communication to Mainstream Life Cycle
Management
As outlined before, it is now on the life cycle community to help making this vision
come true. Key elements on this route will be achieved through:
• Better collaboration with each other across the globe as well as with other
stakeholders
• Better communication to a wider set of stakeholders
3.1 Improve Collaboration Among the Life Cycle Community
Across the Globe
“The community” as it is understood here is a group of people having a particular
interest in common: the use of life cycle information. The community includes:
• Professionals who provide life cycle data and information to be used in internal
processes or commercial or public databases
• Users of life cycle data and information as part of regular and existing decision
making processes in business and governments
• Scientists and researchers who are actively working on developing new methods
and approaches, methodological standards or advancements
20 Communication and Collaboration as Essential Elements…
• Reducing a product’s resource use and emissions to the environment, and
improving its social and socio-economic performance throughout its life cycle
• Enabling consumers to choose more sustainable products
• Information policy to optimize trade-offs
• Infl uencing and validating choices for disruptive improvements, such as new
economic models or radical technology, to move towards possibilities to regenerate
the system and not only be “less bad”, but towards “more good”
However, for life cycle approaches to make a signifi cant contribution to sustainability, they need to be used in a massive and systematic way, especially by companies and businesses within a framework and infrastructure provided by governments.
Success will be when there is a broad understanding of the concepts around life
cycle thinking by the general public and when these concepts are integrated into
decisions by organizations in a systematic way through life cycle management (for
example, integrated into standard design software or purchasing criteria).
3 Moving Towards Better Collaboration
and Communication to Mainstream Life Cycle
Management
As outlined before, it is now on the life cycle community to help making this vision
come true. Key elements on this route will be achieved through:
• Better collaboration with each other across the globe as well as with other
stakeholders
• Better communication to a wider set of stakeholders
3.1 Improve Collaboration Among the Life Cycle Community
Across the Globe
“The community” as it is understood here is a group of people having a particular
interest in common: the use of life cycle information. The community includes:
• Professionals who provide life cycle data and information to be used in internal
processes or commercial or public databases
• Users of life cycle data and information as part of regular and existing decision
making processes in business and governments
• Scientists and researchers who are actively working on developing new methods
and approaches, methodological standards or advancements
20 Communication and Collaboration as Essential Elements…