Life Cycle Analysis

Life Cycle Analysis

Introduction

The paper attempts to enlighten the concept of life cycle analysis in a holistic context. It explains the concept of life cycle of a product or service and aims in explaining the importance of life cycle analysis as a component of sustainable design. The paper examines the life cycle analysis and its appropriateness in application as a component of sustained design. The paper explains the life cycle analysis in a comprehensive manner in relation to its application. Furthermore, the paper attempts to explain the concept of life cycle analysis by discussing its application in construction industry.

Discussion

Life Cycle

The life cycle of a product or service includes all the steps by which a product or service from conception to its end of life. The concept of "Life Cycle" is therefore to manage the philosophy of tools based on the concept of covering the entire life cycle and avoid and local environmental improvements are the result of a movement of pollution loads in time or space (Nalanie, 2007).

Life Cycle Analysis

The analysis of the life cycle of a product or service (LCA) is a comprehensive and accurate analysis of environmental impacts of a product or service at each stage of its life cycle (Mellon, 2009). This is to inventory and material flow of incoming and outgoing energy at every stage of life cycle. The life cycle analysis evaluates the potential environmental impacts of a system throughout its life cycle (Hawken, 1994). This impact takes into account the entire life, "cradle to grave", that is to say, since the extraction of raw materials to processing end of life (landfill, incineration, recycling), through all stages of manufacture, packaging, transport and use. This is a rigorous method that has been the subject of numerous scientific studies. The appropriate approach is described and rigorously takes into account all the consumption and release of the object of analysis (Janetos & Wagener, 2001).

Life Cycle Analysis in contest with Sustained Design

In the area of the overall assessment and multi-criteria environmental impacts, life cycle analysis is the most successful tool. Its practice and current distribution combine to make an instrument more effective and recognized (Nalanie, 2007). It can be used in sustainable development initiatives, particularly those oriented products. Nevertheless, it deals only with the dimension environmental (and in some rare cases, economic) and not the axis of social or societal sustainable development (Hawken, 1994).

In industrial settings, the search for solutions aimed at reconciling industrial activity and the environment. It is this concern that gave rise to the analysis of life cycle products and services (Ralph & Verghese, 2000). The analysis of the life cycle is one component of the overall system Environmental Assessment and is part of studies and strategies to develop an assessment of the environmental situation of a project, country etc. and structured interventions necessary (Janetos & Wagener, 2001). Indeed designed as a tool to identify the use resources and waste production throughout the life cycle of a product, analysis of life cycle is presented from ...