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Handbook on environmental assessment of products

2. Describe the product life-cycle

Once you know exactly what the product delivers to users and what its secondary services are, you need to find out what the environmental impacts of the produc are. The first step in this regard is to form an overview of the product life-cycle.

2.1 Define your task

A product life-cycle has five main phases: the raw materials phase, the production phase, the use phase, the disposal phase, and the transport phase. Transport can either be dealt with separately or be distributed among the other phases.

Begin by noting down the product life-cycle on a piece of paper. Try to form an impression of the significant and insignificant issues associated with the product life-cycle. Assess the total weight of the product and the types of raw materials used. Consider whether production of the product might entail particularly problematic processes or chemicals. Examples would be use of varnishes that emit solvents or particularly energy-intensive processes such as enamelling.

Look at the product lifespan: for most products, the use phase is much longer than the other phases. Thanks to modern technology, the total working time spent on making a coffee maker is less than an hour, while its expected lifespan is five years, perhaps even more. Try to apply proportions to the use phase. Consider the most likely route of disposal of the product: which materials will be recycled? Which

2.1.2 Use a chart for your planning

Think about how you can get the data you need, and how you will go about collecting data. You can use a chart such as the one for the coffee maker shown in table 2.1 as the basis for your deliberations and planning.

Table 2.1
Initial overview of the lifecycle of a coffee maker

Some products are "active" during the use phase, e.g. energyconsuming products such as vacuum cleaners, computers, television sets, or pumps. For other products, the use phase involves very frequent maintenance, e.g. textile products or tableware. For such products, the use phase is almost always dominant. Other products are more "passive", which is to say that they do not have the same degree of impact on the environment during the use phase, e.g. furniture, newspapers, packaging, or paper cups. Even passive products may, however, involve some environmental impact during the use phase: furniture and other objects may need cleaning, maintenance, cooling, heating, drying or similar, and they may exercise an indirect impact on the environment because they form part of other systems. This is why you need to take a very careful look at the entire product life-cycle, trying to imagine all the processes the product goes through and the impacts it causes.

2.1.3 Information about disposal and transport

It can be difficult to obtain specific figures for disposal and transport. Waste from private households is disposed of through standard household waste or via a recycling depot. You can safely assume that all waste which is being disposed of as part of the standard household waste will be incinerated 100%. For waste delivered to recycling depots, you can use the values given in table 2.2. These values are approximate and should only be used if you do not have more detailed information to hand from other sources. Actual disposal will depend on factors such as:

	Opportunities for separation
	Collection systems
	Economically feasible reprocessing techniques

Table 2.2
Rules of thumb for disposal routes for raw materials disposed of via recycling depots

2.1.4 What should be included?

You will often have to decide whether you should include minor parts of the product in your considerations, e.g. screws, oil, and similar. In the example of the coffee maker, you may also want to include coffee filters and the coffee itself. If you are not sure what to include, assume that anything which is influenced by the company's or the user's choices must be included.

So we cannot say, for example, that screws should never be considered. If your environmental assessment concerns a screw, it is obviously significant. If, however, you have a product which contains 100 kg steel and has a chromium-plated surface, 20 grams of steel screws do not make much difference. Omitting them from your assessment does not matter, because steel does not contain scarce resources or hazardous/harmful substances.

2.2 Collect data for the product life-cycle

You now need to obtain data about the entire product life-cycle. For example, you may want to collect data in tables to make them easily accessible to others. This will also make it easier to show what you have included in your environmental assessment. Information on raw materials and production will often be available from the company production department. Many companies have a so-called raw materials and process list which includes all the data you need. Information on where the product is sold is often available from the sales and marketing department, while data on the actual use can be collected from the sales staff and product-development staff alike. It will often be necessary to obtain information on disposal of the product from other sources, e.g. from the local recycling depots, from dealers (who sometimes receive returns of old product when selling new ones), or from knowledge institutes.

Table 2.3
Composition of the coffee maker and the manufacturing processes associated with it

Table 2.4
Use of the coffee maker

Material/ component	Process			Ancillary materials
	Name	Unit	Quantity	Name
Entire product	Coffee-making Electricity consumption Coffee filters Coffee Water			-
		kWh	540	-
		kg	7.3	Bleach
		kg	290	Pesticides/fertilizer
		kg	3,640	-
	Cleaning (machine and pot)	kg	50	Water (hot/warm)
		ml	25	Washing-up liquid
	Decalcification	kg	15	Acetic acid
	Compensation for heating	kWh	-360	-

Table 2.5
Disposal of the coffee maker

Include a conservative calculation of the significance of the total transport to get an initial impression of whether transport is important to the overall situation. In most cases, transport is not very important, and optimisation within this area can often be left to the logistics department. Transport for the coffee maker is illustrated in table 2.6.

Table 2.6
Transport, coffee maker

Tables 2.3-2.6, illustrated here by our example of the coffee maker, form the basis for your environmental assessment. They specify all the information you need about the product and its life-cycle. You will often need various data, particularly in connection with processes and ancillary materials – this is also illustrated in the example of the coffee maker. You will have to leave these matters aside for the present, but they should still be included in your basis for future work, as they will be addressed at a later stage.

2.2.1 Would a flow diagram of the product life-cycle be more suitable?

Would a flow diagram of the product life-cycle be more suitable? The raw materials and process list model can be useful for establishing an overview of the product life-cycle if the product in question comprises many separate components and/or raw materials. For simpler and more homogenous products, you can also choose to use a flow diagram. In some cases, such a diagram provides a better overview. You are free to choose whatever you feel is best in each case.

Figure 2.1
Overview of the coffee maker's life-cycle. Transport not included.

2.2.2 Compensation

In the previous section, we mentioned that the unintentional secondary services seen in connection with most products often have considerable impact on the environment. This kind of service appears where the system that you are looking (the product life-cycle and the processes it includes) affects or is connected to other systems. Secondary services reduce or eliminate the need for alternative ways of receiving the service in question. In order to take this into account, we need to compensate for such services. If, for example, metals are being recycled, you need to deduct production of a corresponding amount of metal from the overall result. This means that for the purpose of calculations, you will experience negative raw materials consumption during the disposal phase.

Compensation occurs most frequently within the following areas:

	Excess heat from electrical appliances and devices
	Electricity and heating generated by means of waste incineration
	Recycling

Excess heat is typically encountered during the use phase and constitutes a negative contribution. It is important to address excess heat separately, as this is one of the areas where your work can make a difference. For coffee makers and water heaters, excess heat represents the greatest scope for improvements.

In Denmark, the heat generated by incineration plants is utilised. The heat which can be utilised corresponds to the calorific value of the materials. Plastic and papier are high-grade fuels, while metals usually have no calorific value. The values can be found in Appendix B, table 2.1.

When materials are recycled, this is indicated by placing a – in front of the recycled materials during the disposal phase. Remember to include energy consumption for the recycling process in your calculations (e.g. melting). It is not enough to simply hand over the materials; they also need to be processed.

Remember that compensation can only be carried out in situations where, for example, materials are in fact recycled or are very likely to be recycled. It is not enough that they can be recycled.

Table 2.7
A product contains 10 kg plastic, of which 5 kg are recycled

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