59
of policies and products, as well as for procurement and the provision of services.”
9
It has been the start at the time of the United Nations Conference on Environment
and Development, Rio de Janeiro 1992, for a comprehensive effort to present 20
years later a tool for life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA).
The precursor of “life cycle assessment (LCA)” goes back to the late 1960s.
The development of the technique throughout the 1970s and 1980s was stimulated
by eager enterprises and policy makers who wanted to have a better understanding
of the environmental impact of packaging and energy content of products. Later
on, LCA was applied to an increasing variety of product types, and methods for
life cycle environmental impact assessment began to be developed. It resulted
initially in the publication of the “Code of Practice” (Consoli et al. 1993 ), followed by the development of four ISO standards (ISO 14040–14043) published in
1997–2000, all of which were replaced in 2006 by two standards, ISO 14040 and
ISO 14044 (ISO ISO 2006a , b ). These standards describe the requirements and
formulate recommendations for elaborating an LCA. At fi rst it was meant to
address the environmental aspects of a product and their potential impacts
throughout that product’s life cycle. However, the picture is not complete within
a context of sustainable development unless social and socio-economic impacts
on all actors along the life cycle, including workers, local communities, consumers and society, are analyzed. Discussions on how to deal with social and socioeconomic dimensions of products throughout a life cycle started at the end of the
1980s. In 2004, the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative
10 established an international Task Force to “to convert the current environmental tool LCA into a triplebottom-line sustainable development tool”: by 2009 the “Guidelines for social life
cycle assessment of products” were published with a set of (sub-)categories of
impacts (Benoit and Mazijn 2009 ). The subtitle of the publication is relevant
within this context: “A social and socio- economic LCA code of practice complementing environmental LCA and Life Cycle Costing, contributing to the full
assessment of goods and services within the context of sustainable development.”
Indeed, LCC or life cycle costing is regarded as the third LCA technique aiming
at “the assessment of all costs associated with the life cycle of a product that are
directly covered by 1 or more actors in the product life cycle (supplier, manufacturer, user or consumer, and/or End of Life actor), with the inclusion of externalities that are anticipated to be internalized in the decision- relevant future”
(Hunkeler et al. 2008 ).
These different life cycle assessment techniques can be combined as part of an
over-arching LCSA and allow to assess the impacts of the value chain. Recently, the
methodology has been presented in two publications (Valdivia et al. 2011 , 2012 )
where it is emphasised that LCSA “helps to organise complex environmental, economic and social data in a structured form; clarify the trade-offs between the three
sustainability dimensions, life cycle stages and impacts; provide guiding principles
9 See for more information: http://www.lifecycleinitiative.org/starting-life-cycle-thinking/ (last
accessed February 2015).
10 See www.lifecycleinitiative.org (last accessed February 2015).
5 Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment: A Tool for Exercising Due Diligence…
of policies and products, as well as for procurement and the provision of services.”
9
It has been the start at the time of the United Nations Conference on Environment
and Development, Rio de Janeiro 1992, for a comprehensive effort to present 20
years later a tool for life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA).
The precursor of “life cycle assessment (LCA)” goes back to the late 1960s.
The development of the technique throughout the 1970s and 1980s was stimulated
by eager enterprises and policy makers who wanted to have a better understanding
of the environmental impact of packaging and energy content of products. Later
on, LCA was applied to an increasing variety of product types, and methods for
life cycle environmental impact assessment began to be developed. It resulted
initially in the publication of the “Code of Practice” (Consoli et al. 1993 ), followed by the development of four ISO standards (ISO 14040–14043) published in
1997–2000, all of which were replaced in 2006 by two standards, ISO 14040 and
ISO 14044 (ISO ISO 2006a , b ). These standards describe the requirements and
formulate recommendations for elaborating an LCA. At fi rst it was meant to
address the environmental aspects of a product and their potential impacts
throughout that product’s life cycle. However, the picture is not complete within
a context of sustainable development unless social and socio-economic impacts
on all actors along the life cycle, including workers, local communities, consumers and society, are analyzed. Discussions on how to deal with social and socioeconomic dimensions of products throughout a life cycle started at the end of the
1980s. In 2004, the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative
10 established an international Task Force to “to convert the current environmental tool LCA into a triplebottom-line sustainable development tool”: by 2009 the “Guidelines for social life
cycle assessment of products” were published with a set of (sub-)categories of
impacts (Benoit and Mazijn 2009 ). The subtitle of the publication is relevant
within this context: “A social and socio- economic LCA code of practice complementing environmental LCA and Life Cycle Costing, contributing to the full
assessment of goods and services within the context of sustainable development.”
Indeed, LCC or life cycle costing is regarded as the third LCA technique aiming
at “the assessment of all costs associated with the life cycle of a product that are
directly covered by 1 or more actors in the product life cycle (supplier, manufacturer, user or consumer, and/or End of Life actor), with the inclusion of externalities that are anticipated to be internalized in the decision- relevant future”
(Hunkeler et al. 2008 ).
These different life cycle assessment techniques can be combined as part of an
over-arching LCSA and allow to assess the impacts of the value chain. Recently, the
methodology has been presented in two publications (Valdivia et al. 2011 , 2012 )
where it is emphasised that LCSA “helps to organise complex environmental, economic and social data in a structured form; clarify the trade-offs between the three
sustainability dimensions, life cycle stages and impacts; provide guiding principles
9 See for more information: http://www.lifecycleinitiative.org/starting-life-cycle-thinking/ (last
accessed February 2015).
10 See www.lifecycleinitiative.org (last accessed February 2015).
5 Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment: A Tool for Exercising Due Diligence…