the adoption of life-cycle approaches by industry: patterns and impacts

Resources, Conservation and Recycling 20 (1997) 71–94

The adoption of life-cycle approaches by industry:patterns and impacts1

Frans Berkhout *, Rupert Howes

Science Policy Research Unit, Uni6ersity of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9RF, East Sussex, UK

Received 4 December 1996; received in revised form 10 February 1997; accepted 19 February 1997

Abstract

Firms are the primary organisers and drivers of resources flows through and emissionsfrom developed economies. Sustainable industrial development is a process in which theseflows are modified. This includes both a reduction of materials and energy intensity,increasing cyclicity of materials fluxes, and a reduction of dissipative uses of toxic materials.The role of firms in achieving these changes is discussed in this paper. Life cycle assessmentactivities in large European firms in six industrial sectors are assessed. Market and regulatorypressures on firms to adopt life cycle approaches differ markedly between industrial sectorsand across national markets. Producers of final products are most likely to find opportunitiesfor improvements in the life cycle environmental performance of products while makinggains in dynamic competitiveness at the same time. Upstream producers of commodityproducts have tended to use life cycle approaches defensively against negative environmentalclaims and in seeking to influence the policy process. Despite widespread adoption of lifecycle approaches, changes in product system ecoprofiles are likely to be slow given techno-logical trajectories, infrastructural and resource endowments, and the fragmentation ofenvironmental responsibility across the product chain. © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.

Keywords: Life cycle assessment; Ecoprofile; Innovation; Technical change; Competitiveness

* Corresponding author. Tel: +44 1273 678 170; fax: +44 1273 685 865.1 This paper are based on two research projects sponsored by the Global Environmental Change

(GEC) Programme of the UK’s Economic and Social Research Programme, and by DGIII (Industry) ofthe European Commission.

0921-3449/97/$17.00 © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

PII S09 1 -3449 (97 )01199 -3

F. Berkhout, R. Howes / Resources, Conser6ation and Recycling 20 (1997) 71–9472

1. Overview

The objective in this paper is to describe patterns of adoption and application oflife cycle approaches in European industry, and to place these findings in thecontext of policies to encourage sustainable development. Life cycle approaches areat the centre of attempts to develop a more integrated, product-oriented environ-mental policies. The objective of these policies is to reduce the resource andpollution intensity of the delivery of ‘functions’ provided through goods andservices to the consumer. These include both upstream and downstream resourceand pollution commitments. In principle, the rate of improvement in the ‘eco-effi-ciency’ of goods and services can outpace the rate of growth of demand for them,so bringing absolute environmental gains. The paper assesses the main drivers forthe adoption of such approaches in firms across six key industrial sectors (alu-minium, chemicals, building materials, personal products, electronic goods andautomobiles), and provides an analysis on the likely impacts on innovation andtechnical change.

The product system is becoming the focus of environmental policy becauseproducts are the key linking elements in the economic-environmental system.Products provide three types of link:

� The Institutional and Informational Link: Along the product chain betweenproducers, retailers, consumers and waste managers/recyclers

� The Eco-functional Link: Linking resource and environmental commitments tothe function delivered to the consumer, and

� The Economic–Industrial Link: By defining the technological and market con-text in which the product and its function is delivered.

In making a transition from process-oriented to product-oriented policy, thescope of environmental policy is greatly increased. One of the key questions is overhow to judge between competing means of providing a product or the service whichit provides, or how to make a judgement that certain types of consumption shouldbe restricted or even prohibited because their environmental burden is deemed to betoo great. Another key issue is over the allocation of responsibility for modifyingresource and pollution commitments across product life cycles. Many actorsparticipate in motivating and organising even quite simple product systems. Thesesystems typically have many elements (production, transport, consumption, wastemanagement) which are based on a diverse range of technologies, institutions andbehaviours. They are also frequently global. It is clear that governments, bythemselves, cannot devise and enforce a lifecycle management process for allproducts. But in the creation of new forms of joint action and extended or sharedresponsibility, many problems remain to be overcome.

Industrial manufacturing firms will continue to play a major role in the manage-ment of product systems. What then, are their interests and capabilities in carryingout this role? This question can start to be answered assessing how industrialfirms have sought to learn about and adopt life cycle approaches. This paper argues

F. Berkhout, R. Howes / Resources, Conser6ation and Recycling 20 (1997) 71–94 73

that patterns of application of life cycle approaches in industry are shaped primarilyby the nature of competition in an industrial sector. Application of life cycleapproaches is therefore highly differentiated between sectors. This reflects thedegree of flexibility over environmental performance in different sectors: wherealong product systems the technological and market opportunities exist for realimprovements in environmental performance; and the balance between market andregulatory pressures which drive the adoption of life cycle approaches. Policy whichseeks to intervene in product life cycles must take into account the diversity oftechnological and market conditions which operate at different phases of the lifecycle of a product.

The paper begins with a review of life cycle approaches and the main interestgroups which support its development. This is followed in Sections 4, 5 and 6 by areview of the patterns of industrial adoption of life cycle approaches and ananalysis of the factors determining adoption. Sections 7, 8 and 9 draw on a set ofindustrial case studies to describe the development of life cycle competences inEuropean firms, and provides a taxonomy of industrial life cycle applications.Impacts of life cycle approaches on innovation and competitiveness are discussed inSections 10 and 11, while policy implications are assessed in Section 12.

2. Life cycle approaches

LCA is an analytical approach developed for quantifying the total environmentalimpacts of a product or production process. A full LCA would include the wholelife cycle of a product from ‘cradle to grave,’ stretching from raw materialsextraction through materials processing, component production, final assembly,distribution, use, waste management and recycling. Following the SETAC (Societyfor Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry) approach, a full-scale study wouldinclude a description of the product system and its mass and energy balances(inventory stage), an accounting of the environmental and resource impacts of thesystem (classification and characterisation) and, finally, some valuation of thedifferent impacts (normalisation and valuation) [1].

Most life cycle studies cover only a limited set of life cycle components, andmany do not include a formal assessment step. More limited ‘cradle-to-gate’ lifecycle inventory (LCI) studies typically provide mass and energy balances andenvironmental emissions inventories for the production of intermediate products,such as commodity thermoplastics. Downstream assembly, use and waste manage-ment steps are not considered, and no attempt at classifying or valuing impacts ismade. We include these studies in our definition of a life cycle approach.

Life cycle studies have been used to understand three types of problem:

� Assessments of single products to learn about their eco-profiles (one example isthe 1995 European surfactant life cycle inventory study, [2])

� Comparisons of process routes in production of substitutable products orprocesses (the early studies on paper and polystyrene hot beverage containers,[3])


� Comparisons of alternative ways for delivering a given service or function(mobility, warmth)

Most life cycle studies have been comparative assessments of substitutableproducts delivering similar functions, but there has been a recent trend towards theuse of life cycle approaches in comparing alternative production processes (cf.comparing alternative production routes for titanium dioxide) and policies (cf. lifecycle assessments of plastics waste management options).

3. Four stakeholder groups

Demand for life cycle approaches has developed in four stakeholder groups inEurope over the past decade: industry; government; independent LCA practi-tioners; and consumer and environmental organisations. In each sphere the motiva-tions for learning about and adopting life cycle approaches have been different.Industrial firms were initially interested in making LCA-based environmentalclaims about their products, and in defending products against claims made bycompetitors and non-governmental organisations. More developmental applicationsin product design, process optimisation, strategic planning, investment appraisal,environmental performance evaluation and the framing of ‘green’ procurementpolicies have also been identified.

For policy-makers, LCA offers a framework for extending the boundaries ofenvironmental policies beyond emission control and remediation, and towards thedeeper objective of influencing patterns of production and consumption. The lifecycle approach has been applied extensively at the national and European level inthe development and political discussion about waste policies and ecolabels. Thereis now an active debate about how to widen the life cycle approach to other areasof environmental policy. Independent LCA practitioners who hold much of theexpertise in conducting life cycle studies have had primarily commercial motiva-tions. These practitioners work mainly in universities and in consulting firms withassociations with universities. Their key aims are to standardise and legitimisemethods used in conducting LCAs. Environmental and consumer organisationshave seen LCA as a tool for making industry more accountable and transparent,and for monitoring changes in the environmental performance of products. How-ever, some of these organisations have also been suspicious of LCA, seeing it as aninstrument used by industry more to confuse than to inform.

4. Patterns of LCA adoption in european industry

European industrial interest in life cycle assessment emerged strongly in the late1980s. Several firms, including Procter and Gamble, Dow and Volvo becamesponsors of LCA studies, and actively to promote the instrument in thewider industrial and policymaking community. Trade associations in the chemicals,


metals and forest products sectors began sponsoring studies during this period.Industry has therefore played a key role in creating the currently diverse andhealthy European LCA community. Industry has supported LCA financially,industrial practitioners have become engaged in methodological debates and firmshave provided life cycle data.

By the early 1990s European firms in many manufacturing sectors had estab-lished LCA competences in-house, and were sponsoring collaborative life cycleinventory studies. In some sectors such as plastics, detergents, personal productsand automobiles, all major firms have made some investment in LCA, in othersectors industrial interest appears to be fragmentary, while in the remainder thereis no LCA activity. Some LCA activity is now going on in most sectors of industry:agriculture; mining and oil and gas extraction; construction/the building materialssector; manufacturing industry (with the exception of tobacco products); andretailing. Infrastructural industries (electricity, gas and water supply, and transport,storage and communication) have only recently begun to apply LCA for specificpurchasing decisions (cf. PVC pipes for gas distribution systems [4]).

Firms in the United States have been generally slower to adopt LCA, eventhough a number of US firms operating in Europe have been important promotersof the technique. Recent surveys have shown that North American firms arebecoming more interested in life cycle approaches [5]. Japanese and Koreanindustry is also beginning to develop an interest in LCA. European industry istherefore in the vanguard of adopting and applying life cycle approaches.

LCA learning and adoption strategies is highly differentiated across industrialfirms. They are differentiated across sectors, between firms within the same sector,and between business units within the same firm. This diversity is partly explainedby the relative newness of the technique: diffusion of best practice is neverinstantaneous. It also shows that firms have different interests and capabilities toadopt a new environmental assessment tool like LCA. Even in sectors where thereis relatively high commitment to LCA, firms display a diversity of attitudes andapproaches to the instrument. Within most firms LCA competence holders form asmall group, often with responsibilities besides LCA. The interests and personalitiesof key individuals can therefore play an important role in the approach followed byparticular firms.

Despite this apparent diversity it is possible to define a number of distinct andsector-specific approaches to learning and adoption of life cycle approaches byindustry. In particular we will argue that the nature of LCA adoption in industryis to a large extent determined by the life cycle position of an industry and thenature of competition within it. Upstream producers in highly concentrated indus-tries behave markedly differently to downstream producers operating in highlycompetitive markets.

The analysis in this paper is based on in-depth interviews conducted with 90European firms in the aluminium, chemicals (plastics and surfactant producers),building materials (cement and insulating materials producers), personal products(diaper and producers), electronic goods and automobiles industriesduring 1995 and 1996. These industries represent a spread across commodity,


simple goods and complex final goods producers in which relatively high levelsof life cycle activity were known to exist. In some sectors such as automobiles,all major European producers were surveyed. In less concentrated industries suchas building materials, a sample of producers were chosen (in this case producersof cement and insulating materials) with the aim of identifying best practice. Theindustries were also chosen for their economic significance and potential environ-mental impact. We believe that the firm sample chosen is representative of therange of different approaches to LCA taken with European industry.

5. Drivers of adoption

During the 1980s a number of regulatory and market pressures forced firms inmany industrial sectors to try to understand and manage the life cycle environ-mental impacts of products which they had a hand in making. Usually thismeant that firms had to look ‘beyond the factory gates’ at resource and environ-mental burdens for which they were not directly responsible. Firms were, and onthe whole still are, ignorant about the upstream and downstream environmentalimpacts of their products. Legal responsibility for these impacts frequently lieswith other actors in the value chain (suppliers, customers or waste managers) sothere is no clear rationale for monitoring or modifying them. Only in a fewmarkets (as for organic vegetables) have producers or retailers needed to takeaccount of environmental aspects of a product which were not directly withintheir own control. It was assumed that health and safety standards would beenforced on suppliers by regulators, while customers were held responsible forthe environmental impacts associated with products in use.

This ‘black and white’ picture has become much greyer over the past decadeor so. Consumers have become more concerned about the environmental profileof the products they consume (especially where this may have implications forconsumer health), whilst product-related environmental regulations and voluntaryagreements have given greater responsibility for life cycle management to pro-ducers. These two pressures, one market-driven, the other policy-driven, posesnew problems for firms in many industrial sectors, and may threaten their com-petitiveness.

The specific drivers of LCA adoption have been:

Product-related en6ironmental pressureFacing increased demands for improved environmental performance and ac-countability — from environmental organisations, consumers, regulators and in-dustrial customers — businesses have become more receptive to analytical tools,such as LCAs, which enable them to take part in the debate and respond tothese new demands. Pressure on the ‘back-end’ of product systems (reductionand management of consumption-related wastes) been the principal driver— important in the packaging, consumer goods, detergents, automobile andelectronic equipment industries.


Global problemsA growing awareness of the global and regional nature of many environmentalproblems (ozone depletion and acidification, for instance) created a political needfor action. Life cycle assessment was an approach for investigating and comparingthe global impacts of products. It provided a mean for bringing these new problemsto bear on everyday, mass-produced products.

Local issues become genericLocal environmental management problems, especially the landfilling of industrialand household wastes, appeared to become generic during the late 1980s and early1990s. Policy-makers in many European countries faced a similar task of assessingalternative management strategies, while placing high value on reuse and recycling.The new end-of-life and waste management policies inevitably had consequences forindustry. LCA provided a framework for dialogue between policy makers andindustry.

Information needsConsumers and consumer advocates began demanding more information about theeco-profiles of products. This has led in the 1980s and 1990s to a profusion oflabelling schemes, some of which (the European Ecolabelling scheme) have beenbased on LCAs. Ecoprofile information has also been provided in many marketcontexts absent an ecolabelling scheme.

Need for en6ironmental management toolsApart from needing to respond externally to new product-related environmentalpressure, many firms also began searching in the 1980s for ways in which simplerules such as the waste hierarchy could be applied in complex internal businessdecisions. With LCA firms could quantify and compare the relative environmentalperformance of their products. Early advocates believed that LCA would beadopted widely as a tool in decision-making. Fear that competitors would gain anadvantage persuaded some other firms to invest in LCA.

These drivers were mainly concerned with the resource requirements and environ-mental impacts of products. Although opportunities have subsequently been iden-tified where life cycle approaches have been applied by firms in production processoptimisation, these applications are still quite rare and specific to cases where tworadically different processes are available (as with solvent- and water-based paintsystems in the automobile industry). Claims have also been made that life cycleapproaches have been applied in investment appraisal and business strategy. Clearevidence for this was not identified by this study.

6. Adoption by industry of life cycle approaches

Life cycle assessment is a possible response to a of different needs inindustrial firms [6,7]. As a relatively new and immature approach firms need to


learn how to conduct and interpret life cycle studies. New competences andcapabilities are usually required, while approaches for applying life cycle-basedknowledge in business processes must be developed. There are risks and uncertain-ties attached to the learning and adoption process. If a firm decides to invest inLCA, a variety of routes are available, each with different organisational andfinancial consequences.

6.1. Factors determining adoption

Industrial approaches to LCA occupy a range from active engagement andintegration into business processes, to a more detached attitude of ‘keeping an eyeon developments’. A number of factors influence indiviudal firms in their decisionto adopt LCA. These include: the nature and persistence of environmental pressuresfrom customers, consumers and regulators; the need to demonstrate environmentalperformance of products relative to alternatives; the appropriateness of alternativeenvironmental assessment techniques (i.e. environmental risk assessment); and theperceived benefits to a firm’s image of adopting a holistic approach to environmen-tal management.

Life cycle assessment is concerned primarily with global and regional-scaleenvironmental impacts of materials and energy use in the delivery of products andservices. All products and services involve some energy and materials usage, but thegreatest use for LCA is found in industrial sectors (production of commodities,consumer durables) with relatively high materials and energy intensities. Thesesectors have been under the most direct regulatory and market pressure to justifyand reduce resource intensity. There is a close link between reduced resourceintensity and the eco-profile of products. Benefits are more effectively passed downthe product chain if life cycle information can be provided to customers andconsumers.

Pressures to reduce environmental impacts upstream and downstream of a firm’soperations are also an important factor in LCA adoption. Firms in most industrialsectors have established processes for managing environmental aspects of their ownoperations. Life cycle approaches are useful when there is a clear need to extendcontrol beyond the boundaries of the firm. This is especially the case withdownstream environmental impacts. Firms in many sectors have long sought toinfluence use-phase impacts (increased energy efficiency of consumer durables).LCA provides a framework for considering a wider variety of environment-perfor-mance trade-offs in product design, use and discard [8].

Life cycle approaches may be adopted to resolve specific external or internalneeds for analysis and communication, or they may be adopted for more generalreasons. There are a host of problems associated with the communication of theresults of life cycle studies (confidentiality, credibility and clarity). Firms thereforefind it difficult to make life cycle-based claims. firms may want tosignal that they are serious about managing the environmental consequences oftheir activities.


6.2. Factors shaping adoption

The factors influencing the adoption by firms of LCA are: whether the maindriver is regulatory or market pressure; the control exerted by a firm over theproduct chain; whether the decision to adopt is ‘top-down’ or ‘bottom-up’; thebalance of internal and external applications of LCA; the appropriability to thebusiness of life cycle approaches; the availability of inventory data and the costsassociated with adoption. These are assessed below.

6.2.1. Regulatory or market dri6ersRegulation, and anticipation of regulation, is still the main driver of environmen-

tal initiatives in industry. It has also played an important role in encouraging firmsto adopt life cycle approaches, even though there are few examples where extendedproducer responsibility is mandated in law. Where regulation is an important driverof LCA adoption the response among firms has typically been to collaborate inseeking to influence the new policy. Large studies are funded and published, oftencarried out by third parties (academics or consulting firms). By being involved in astudy, primarily through the collection of inventory data, firms often develop somein-house LCA capabilities which may subsequently be applied to internal decision-making processes.

The market may influence adoption if LCA-based claims are employed incompetition between products or processes. This may take the form of cross-sec-toral between different materials types (steel versus aluminium), or intra-sectoralcompetition between equivalent products (diapers). In cases of cross-sectoral com-petition, firms tend to collaborate in both attacking and defending their positions.Intra-sectoral competition tends to require substantial in-house LCA competences.Firms need to be able to respond quickly to new claims and to retain control andconfidentiality over data and study results.

6.2.2. Control o6er the product chainA generic product chain includes raw materials extraction, materials processing,

assembly of final product, use, waste management (and recycling) stages. Firmssituated along this product chain will exercise control over different stages of thechain, and will have varying capacity to extend this control to other stages. On thewhole, the larger and more centrally placed a firm is, the greater will be the degreeof control it can exercise.

Assemblers of final products are the orchestrators of product life cycles and havethe greatest knowledge about the composition and performance of the product.Through their purchasing and design decisions they have the greatest influence inshaping ecoprofiles of products. They are also under the most direct regulatory andmarket pressure to improve and communicate their environmental performance.We would therefore expect final goods producers to gain most from adopting LCA.

In reality the position is less clear-cut. Commodity producers have collectivelyinvested more heavily in LCA and appear to extract more distinct competi-tive advantages from their investment. This is partly because they adopted LCA


relatively early. Second, their needs in adopting LCA tend to be relatively simple,and require few organisational or technological innovations. Participation in collab-orative LCI studies involves the collation of data which is often already collected bythe firm. Unless, as in Germany, they are given direct responsibility for wastemanagement, commodity producers have not been concerned with the widerproblem of life cycle management. Third, LCAs of simple products are still in theirinfancy, while manufacturers have little confidence in full-scale LCAs for complexproducts. The appropriateness of LCA for complex products is still being assessed.

6.2.3. Top-down or bottom-upAdoption of LCA by firms is stimulated either by top management or marketing

functions, or emerges internally within research and technical departments. Man-agement and marketing functions tend to respond to definite external stimuli whichrepresent competitive threats to the firm. These include life cycle-based claims bycompetitors and new regulatory initiatives with an impact on the life cycle costs ofproducts.

Under these conditions firms quickly establish in-house LCA competences,usually as relatively well-funded centralised functions with links to similar functionsin other companies in the sector. This pattern is typical in commodity producingsectors like chemicals and aluminium. It also occurs in final goods producingsectors where there may be a clear market advantage in making life cycle-basedclaims (as in sectors in which an ecolabel is being negotiated).

Research and technical departments have also been a route for LCA adoption byresponding to longer-term, less direct threats to competitiveness. In these sectors,engineers facing new demands for environmentally-friendly products have seenLCA as a problem-solving framework which could be applied in design anddevelopment. In-house competences were established more slowly in these circum-stances in small decentralised units, sometimes distributed across several businesseswithin the firm. External links tend to be weaker in these cases. This pattern is moretypical of intermediate and final goods producing sectors like building materials,automobiles and electronic goods.

6.2.4. Internal or externalLife cycle studies can be used by firms in exploiting market opportunities or

defending against market threats externally, or they may be used internally tosupport business decisions within firms. These two orientations encourage differentapproaches to LCA adoption.

Externally-oriented applications involve the defensive or offensive use of LCA-based claims to external stakeholders (customers, policy makers, LCA practitionersand others). Publication of inventory data and/or the results of studies will usuallybe required to support such claims. It has been estimated that fewer than 20% ofLCA studies are available in the open literature [8]. To be credible these studiesincreasingly need to meet certain minimum standards of transparency and peerreview. This excludes the use commercially confidential data and often requiresformal external evaluation. The production of formal studies may also require


specialist LCA competences which the firm does not possess. Consultants thereforeplay an important role in these applications.

Internally-oriented life cycle approaches include a variety of activities rangingfrom large formal studies to simpler assessments which may be linked to decision-support tools for designers. These approaches are usually applied, and therebysupport a decision. Internal studies are not published and do not need to meetformal criteria for thoroughness and transparency. Such studies are almost exclu-sively conducted by in-house LCA practitioners.

6.2.5. AppropriabilityThe adoption of life cycle approaches by firms will depend on the benefits which

can be gained from life cycle based knowledge. In most sectors direct benefitscannot be gained by firms because product life cycles are not within their directcontrol. The benefits associated with changes across the product system willtherefore not be appropriable by individual firms. Moreover, market demand forlife cycle information or improvements to the ecoprofile of a product may bevariable. Early marketing uses of LCA have demonstrated that such informationcan easily be manipulated and refuted, leaving confusion and resentment amongconsumers.

The benefits available to firms are usually indirect, and may be defensive(protecting market share or countering new regulations), or more developmental(supporting product development and product strategy). With defensive uses thegoal is to influence the regulatory or market environment, while with moredevelopmental uses there may be technological or organisational benefits for firmswhich are nevertheless difficult to communicate to the market. LCA-based claimsare difficult for firms individually to sustain in the marketplace because consumerscannot evaluate them and because such claims elicit LCA-based counter-claims bycompetitors. LCA-based claims have a greater chance of being accepted if they aresupported by a wider and more authoritative community of experts.

Impacts of life cycle approaches on indicators such as costs, quality and sales aredifficult to measure. Firms in several sectors (automobiles, electronic goods, build-ing materials) are still struggling to understand how LCA and life cycle approachesbenefit them. Broadly speaking where the benefits are at the sectoral level, firmsengage in externally-oriented, large-scale, collaborative and standardised life cyclestudies. Where benefits can be appropriated by individual firms life cycle ap-proaches tend to be internally-oriented, confidential, small-scale and less standard-ised.

6.2.6. Access to dataInventory data is the crux of LCA. Data collection and validation typically

absorbs 70–80% of the cost of a study. All studies face greater or lesser problemsin finding comprehensive and representative data. Inventory data exists in threeforms: open sources; commercially available databases; and commercially confiden-tial databases. By definition the latter is by firms and not usually transferredto other firms or to LCA practitioners, except under confidentiality rules.


The capacity of firms to generate inventory data internally varies greatly.Process-based industries generally collect and monitor mass balance and energydata routinely, and increasingly also collect data on wastes and emissions. Furtherdownstream, where value is increasingly determined by the function of productsrather than their composition firms generally do not collect data routinely. Typi-cally these firms are not aware of the materials contained in the components andsystems supplied for assembly. For these firms the costs of data collection aretherefore very high, and often requires the acquisition of substantial new knowledgeand competence.

For most industrial LCA studies, firms need data on activities outside their ownenterprise. Today reasonably good data is available for major classes of material(plastics, steel and aluminium, paper and rubber), for many industrial transportmodules and for energy production and use. However, inventory data is rarelyavailable even for relatively simple products and processes. The pattern of dataavailability has tended to restrict the adoption of life cycle approaches. While it ispossible to present inventory data for the production of bulk commodity products(plastics and aluminium), and eco-profiles of simple products such as packagingsystems can be compared, full-scale eco-profiles of complex products (cars orpersonal computers) cannot yet be realised, and may never be.

6.2.7. CostsLife cycle assessment studies are costly in time and money. Large collaborative

industry LCI studies cost between 0.5–1 million ECU and take a number of yearsto complete. Smaller studies for individual clients cost 10 000–200 000 ECU andmay take 4–6 months to complete. Even for large industrial firms these are bigsums and long time horizons, especially given the uncertain benefits of any givenstudy. For smaller firms they act as a major barrier to LCA adoption.

The costs of life cycle approaches need to be placed in their industrial context.Where applications are collaborative, cost-sharing lessens the financial burden,while the policy processes and public debates they seek to inform take place overperiods of months and years. Where applications are independent and internally-oriented, the full costs of the study and its application are borne by the firm itself.In these cases product development decisions need to be made, typically over shorttime horizons (less than one month). Time pressure within product developmentplays a major part in sectors where firms are seeking to compress productdevelopment times. Elaborate and time-consuming life cycle studies are not feasiblein this context. Life cycle approaches therefore tend to be more streamlined andoriented to design practice. Organisational costs are also borne through internalis-ing life cycle-based knowledge.

7. Approaches to LCA: results from case studies

The analysis of the factors determining the approach taken LCA adoption byfirms can be compared with the evidence collected in case studies. Table 1 provides


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a synoptic picture of LCA adoption approaches in six industrial sectors. This isa simplified picture showing only the most common features. It therefore smoothesaway intra-sectoral diversities of approach.

A number of broad conclusions can be drawn from this picture:

1. There is no universal pattern of adoption. Clear differences exist in the ap-proach taken to life cycle approaches in different sectors.

2. Position in the product chain is a key determinant of the approach taken toLCA adoption. The nature of the driver for adoption (regulation or market)appears to have a less clear-cut impact on the approach taken in differentsectors.

3. Regulatory and market drivers have been equally common as the main driver toLCA adoption across industrial sectors.

7.1. Scale and organisation of firm competences

These patterns are also reflected in the organisation of LCA competences inindustrial firms, and in the level of investment made. Firms initiate learning andadoption about LCA in three ways: they subcontract life cycle studies to outsideconsultants; they grow in-house competences; or they participate in collaborativelife cycle studies. Many European firms have established in-house competences andcapabilities (personnel, databases, LCA software). Many sustain relationships withexternal consultants primarily through collaborative industry studies. In some sectors(detergents and food) firms contract with consultants for specific, non-strategic lifecycle studies on, for example, packaging. On the whole, larger firms with more LCAexperience have fewer independent relations with outside consultants.

In most sectors LCA competence was located centrally, typically in corporateenvironmental affairs functions, or in research and technical services. Disseminationto business units has occurred either where firms are using life cycle-based claimsin marketing, or in the very limited cases where life cycle-based decision tools havebeen provided to product designers. The largest LCA team identified in the studywas that of Dow Chemical which has a world-wide group of about 6 full timepractitioners. It is clear that in-house LCA competences, even in very largecompanies are therefore still quite small.

LCA expenditure by firms is primarily composed of labour costs. This includescosts of data collection within the firm’s facilities, and the cost of data handlingand analysis by the LCA team. The costs of databases, LCA software andsubscriptions to collaborative studies makes up only a small proportion of totalcosts. Total expenditure on LCA varied between negligible amounts to some 3million ECU in the firms surveyed.

8. Industrial applications of LCA

Across the sectors a range of and developmental applications of LCAcan be identified. Defensive applications are typically designed to secure the status


quo by demonstrating to external stakeholders that product system change isunnecessary, or will bring few environmental benefits. Developmental applica-tions assume that improvements are possible to the product system, and thatthe firm concerned can derive some competitive or other benefit from makingthese improvements. Technological and market conditions appear to be themajor determinants of these patterns, although there is evidence that with ma-turing in-house competences, the emergence of technical standards, and grow-ing access to reliable inventory data, there may be a movement towards moreinternal, developmental applications in all sectors.

8.1. Collaborati6e acti6ities

Collaboration is a prudent strategy for firms seeking to adopt life cycle ap-proaches. It reduces the costs and risks associated with adoption, establishes aforum in which industry-specific problems concerning application can be re-solved, and makes a wider set of inventory data available. Clear patterns ofcollaboration can be identified between industrial sectors. Broadly stated, com-modity producers tend to collaborate on data, while final goods producerstend to collaborate on methodology. Firms engage in four types of collabora-tive life cycle activity: sectoral life cycle inventory studies; sectoral methodolog-ical studies; cross-sectoral process studies; and end-of-life studies.

Sectoral inventory studies are the most common form of collaboration.These are typical amongst commodity goods producers in many sectors andare primarily aimed at generating reliable data which can be provided to cus-tomers and opinion-formers, either on request or as part of the active market-ing. Producers further downstream depend on this data for their own life cyclestudies, or may demand them as part of their procurement policy. While thedemand for data is difficult for firms to assess (most firms have few directrequests for data) there is a widespread belief that demand for data will be-come stronger, and that sectors which cannot present data will be at a com-petitive disadvantage. The Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe(APME) inventory studies for commodity thermoplastics is widely held to havegiven plastics an advantage over substitute materials in key markets [9].

For several of the early collaborative LCI studies, the next phase of workwill be to establish inventories for typical downstream processing steps, and fortypical uses. For instance, studies on plastics conversion processes (blowmoulding, film extrusion etc.) are now being sponsored by APME, while theEuropean Chlorinated Solvents Association (ECSA) is sponsoring a study onmetal degreasing systems. Life cycle-based claims may also be made by relatedapplied projects such as the Ultralight Steel Auto Body Programme sponsoredby steel makers world-wide. These applied studies have directly competitivefunction by showing that a given material or process has a better ecoprofilethan alternatives.


Sectoral methodological studies have also been sponsored by firms in intermedi-ate and final goods producing sectors, often in partnership with Government.Examples include the EUCAR LCA working group in the automotive sector andthe ELLCA Project in the electronic goods sector. These studies have two basicaims: to facilitate collaborative learning about LCA in the sector and to resolvemethodological problems specific to the sector.

A further goal of methodological studies, such as the FIEE project in France andthe Eco-indicator project in Holland has been to develop practical evaluation tools.These studies typically involve leading firms from a number of engineering-basedmanufacturing sectors.

Cross-sectoral process studies vertically along the product chain are becomingmore common. In these cases joint studies are done by a commodity supplier witha final customer. Examples include a study of lightweighting options jointly byBMW and Hydro Aluminium [10]; and a paint systems study jointly run byFord-Europe and BP Chemicals together with paint manufacturers [11]. A numberof plastics producers are now formally offering life cycle assessment services tocustomers as part of their overall service.

End of life studies are also co-sponsored by industrial firms [12,13]. These studieshave been a feature of the policy debate about plastics waste where they have beenhighly influential in altering public and policy perceptions about, for example, thevirtues of mechanical recycling. Typically these studies have been supported by awide range of industrial branches including packaged goods producers (foodproducers), packaging producers, and packaging materials producers.

8.2. Independent acti6ities

All European firms surveyed in the automotive and chemicals sectors, and mostof those in the personal products sector had carried out LCA studies in-house.Some electronic goods firms were applying simple LCA-based software decisionsupport tools. European aluminium and building materials producers had notestablished competences to conduct in-house studies. In general, independentactivities were more significant in downstream producers, and especially in engi-neering-based firms.

The main benefit of internal studies is confidentiality. Firms wish to protect thedata and results of studies because they may provide an advantage to competitorsand others. Internal studies are highly differentiated, but can be roughly dividedinto two categories: streamlined studies; and larger studies. Their implementationand impact is more difficult to analyse because of their confidentiality and variety.Internal studies represent between 30% and 60% of total LCA effort within firmswith in-house competences. While they account for a greater proportion of totalstudies, internal studies tending to be smaller.

One of the key issues for independent LCA activities is the question of internal-isation. Even if individuals or groups in firms are conducting studies, how is theknowledge generated applied business decision-making? The approach takenappears to depend critically on whether LCA adoption is ‘top-down’ or ‘bottom-


up’. ‘Top-down’ adoption internalisation was identified in the personal productssector where LCA is being applied universally in packaging design. Applicationsrelated to the product itself are now being driven out of competences developedwithin this activity. With ‘bottom-up’ adoption, internalisation has occurred moreslowly, and more haphazardly. In this case the adoption process appears to beginin an ad hoc manner with LCA enthusiasts conducting exercises on problems whichcome to hand. With time and experience applications may become more systematic,through formal integration into design and other processes. There are today fewexamples of such systematic applications.

Streamlined studies are designed to produce results over timescales ranging fromminutes or days. This may be a materials choice problem in a car designer, apackaging design problem in a toothpaste producer, a screening of an existingproduct for marketing purposes, or environmental scoping of new product orprocess concepts. The clearest applications of streamlined studies have been iden-tified in the packaging and automobile sector. LCA studies are conducted ondedicated software systems linked to existing inventory databases. No further datacollection is required. Materials choice has been the primary concern of thesestudies. The overall approach differs between firms. For some (Volvo and Fiat) theaim is to disseminate LCA software to designers directly for use in association withcomputer-aided design, while at others (BMW) the strategy is to maintain acentralised team conducting studies on sub-assemblies and larger components.

Larger studies aim at providing solutions to problems over periods of weeks andmonths. A key difference to streamlined studies is that they cannot be handledusing existing LCA databases. These studies often require new data to be collectedboth within and outside the firm. Analysis is typically done using standard LCAsoftware.

Larger studies were more common in upstream producers (chemicals and alu-minium) and tend to focus on technology strategy issues (choosing betweenalternative process routes in the production of titanium dioxide) [14]. This is partlybecause of the decision-making structure in these sectors. Technological andorganisational decisions are taken relatively slowly in process-based industries, andmay include complex trade-offs between different process and product chainalternatives. By contrast, in engineering-based firms LCA is being applied toprovide a rapid solution for relatively simple problems such as the energy intensityof materials choice alternatives.

9. Synthesis of approaches to LCA

The analysis of LCA approaches can be simplified to highlight dominantcharacteristics. In this analysis industrial sectors are grouped together in threebroad life cycle categories: commodity producers; intermediate goods producers;and final goods producers. Table 2 shows the results of this synthesis.

Two basic modes of LCA activity are These should be regarded assimplifications which may not fit precisely the activities of particular firms, but


Tab

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which typify general tendencies. Firms and sectors can be placed along thespectrum between these two archetypal approaches to LCA.The first is externally-oriented, top-down, and is limited to the collaborativeproduction of inventory data on a segment of product chain activities. Thisapproach is typical in upstream, commodity-producing sectors. The second isinternally-oriented, bottom-up and includes studies across wider spans of theproduct chain which may include an evaluation component. This approach istypical for downstream assemblers of complex final goods.

Broadly speaking where the competitive benefits are at the sectoral level,firms engage in externally-oriented, large-scale, collaborative life cycle inventorystudies. This approach is typical of upstream, commodity producing sectors.Where competitive benefits can be appropriated by individual firms life cycleapproaches tend to be internally-oriented, confidential, small-scale, integratedinto product development and less standardised. Studies tend to consider thetotal life cycle. This approach is more typical of downstream assemblers offinal goods. Intermediate and simple products occupy an intermediate positionbetween these two extremes, sharing characteristics with both. Table 2 presentsthis synthesis.

10. Impacts of LCA on innovation

Since the adoption of life cycle approaches is strongly determined by thetechnological, market and regulatory conditions prevalent in an industrial sec-tor, the impacts of these approaches on innovation and competitiveness willalso follow this pattern.

10.1. Commodity producers

Commodity producing firms are typically large and vertically integrated, op-erating in mature oligopolistic markets. They are research- and capital-inten-sive, with long investment cycles. Their operations are tightly regulated toprotect health, safety and the environment. Innovation within commoditiesfirms focuses on improvements to technically mature and long-established pro-cesses. As a result, process data collection, and mass and energy balance anal-ysis is a routine management practice. LCA therefore tends to generate littlenew knowledge. Other process-based management tools (pinch analysis) havetraditionally been used in managing change and innovation. On the otherhand, collaboration in benchmarking life cycle inventory studies may enabletechnologically weaker producers to set targets for improvement. In addition,by providing a new heuristic for analysing the costs and benefits of pollutionabatement across integrated facilities, the management of recycling materi-als flows, LCA may have a future impact in stimulating process innovation.


10.2. Final goods producers

Final goods producers are highly diverse, ranging from small- and medium-sizedniche producers through to large multinationals, producing simple and complexgoods. They operate typically in fast-moving consumer markets, with short leadtimes to develop new products and product variants. Product development andmarketing are therefore closely aligned. Continuous product innovation is funda-mental to competitiveness, involving incremental improvements of existing technol-ogy, and the integration of new technology into products (for example, enginemanagement systems in automobile engines). Cost, performance and quality of thefinal product are the primary considerations, with environmental performanceusually a lower priority. This lack of attention, and the poor knowledge most finalproducers have of the ecoprofiles of their products, means that there are greaterinnovative and environmental gains to be made in these sectors, even withoutrelaxing normal cost and performance constraints. Life cycle assessment hasstimulated innovation in a number of simple goods producing sectors (packaging,furniture), while it is being increasingly used as a screening tool amongst producersof more complex products (automobiles and electronic goods).

11. Impacts of LCA on competitiveness

There is no single definition of what makes a firm competitive. Broadly, compet-itive advantage grows out of the way firms organise and perform certain discreteactivities (human resource management, technology development, procurement,marketing, environmental management). Porter [15] and others argue that firmscreate value for their customers by performing these activities, and that this, inturn, generates value for the firm when customers pay for the good or service. Afirm is profitable when the costs of providing ‘buyer value’ are less than income.Competitive advantage over rivals is achieved in two ways: by providing buyervalue more efficiently (lower cost), or by performing activities in a unique way toprovide buyer value which commands a premium price (differentiation).

11.1. Commodity producers

Competition in commodity production is based primarily on price. The maindeterminants of competitiveness are the cost of energy and materials inputs, the‘yield’ from well-established, mature processes, and the costs of environmentalmanagement. In general, there is a strong correlation between relative materials-and energy-efficiency and competitiveness. Life cycle approaches typically add littleto process optimisation in commodity production. Their main impact is to assist inmaintaining (or enhancing) ‘static’ competitiveness by giving producers a tool fordefending (or promoting) a product in the market or to the Collabora-tively-derived ‘benchmark’ ecoprofiles may help less competitive producers withinthe sector set targets for process improvement.


11.2. Final goods producers

Competition between final goods producers is based on function and quality, aswell as price. The main determinants of competitiveness are a capability to respondquickly to consumer demand to provide innovative products, an ability to co-ordi-nate rapid product innovation, and to manage and control costs in the supplychain. Product innovation is a key component of commercial success. There is aweak link between materials- and energy efficiency of products and the competitive-ness of firms.

Producers of final products, are often in the best position to improve theecoprofiles of products. Life cycle approaches are most likely to stimulate innova-tion, and thereby to encourage ‘dynamic competitiveness’ in final goods producingsectors. Internally-oriented, developmental applications of LCA are beginning to bemade in those sectors where market demands or regulatory pressures for life cycleimprovements are greatest (packaging, food, detergents, automobiles). Integrationof life cycle approaches into business processes is still problematic in firms produc-ing complex goods. Integration may carry high financial and organisational costs,while the ability of the firm to appropriate the benefits of life cycle-orientedimprovements of product systems may be limited.

12. Allocating responsibility across product life cycles

The prime aim of government policy in encouraging the adoption of life cycleapproaches and extending producer responsibility will be to have an impact on theenvironmental performance of product systems. Product systems are highly diverse.In setting priorities for product policy the question needs to be asked: where alonga product life cycle can improvements be made which will have the greatestinfluence on total life cycle resource commitments and environmental impacts? Toa large extent, this will depend on the assumptions made in the analysis of theseimpacts, and this is where LCA will play a key role. Assuming, for the moment,that in most product categories it is possible to have consensus about what are themajor environmental impacts and their location, we can derive a taxonomy ofproducts and environmental impacts presented in Table 3. The table also showswhich actor has most immediate responsibility for these impacts, usually by virtueof being the owner of the product (or wastes) during the critical life cycle phase. Amismatch often exists between the incidence of environmental impacts and thescope of direct responsibility of the most financially and technologically capableparticipant in the product system, frequently the final assembler or retailer. Table3 also shows that small environmental benefits are likely if policy measures arelimited to management of end-of-life products. For most consumer durables, forexample, the key problem is energy consumption during the use phase.

It should be noted that the product categories are not exclusive to each other: acommodity product (polypropylene) may be to produce an intermediateproduct (a car bumper) which then becomes a component in a complex final


product (an automobile). The definition of what is a product, and where its majorenvironmental impacts lie, depends on where in the product system you arestanding.

The most important conclusion to be drawn from this table is that final goodsproducers are rarely directly responsible, through ownership, for the key environ-mental impacts associated with product systems. This is partly because sustainedprocess-related regulation has reduced point source emissions of pollution fromindustrial production. In discussions about ‘shared responsibility’ and ‘extendedproducer responsibility’ it is often assumed that final goods producers must be keyactors. But their influence over key phases of product life cycles is usually indirect.

13. Conclusions

The industrial response to pressures to take greater account of the life cycle ofproducts can be defensive (commodity producers), or developmental (final goodsproducers). In the latter case, the appropriability of benefits derived from changesmade to the product life cycle will usually be highly uncertain. Market andregulatory signals to improve the environmental performance of products arealways in competition with more traditional criteria concerned with function,quality and price. In these firms there are major costs and uncertainties in theadoption of life cycle approaches, and the market benefits to the firm may be hardto measure. Moreover, the main environmental impacts arising from the productsystems they orchestrate often fall outside the production phase.

Government policy can play a positive role in extending producer responsibility,but a voluntaristic approach is needed and this is most likely to be successful if twobasic problems are addressed. First, the regulatory and policy framework withinwhich industry operates sends conflicting signals. Current environmental, industrialand economic policy was not created against the background of an integratedassessment of the environmental impacts of these measures. Environmental policytoday is a patchwork, accreted through a long history of crisis management and

Table 3Life cycle environmental impacts across five generic product groups

Key actorProduct Major environmental impacts

Commodity product Raw materials extraction and Mining/extraction firms and commodityproduction producersProduction and useIntermediate product Commodity producers and final con-

sumersCommodity producers and waste handlersSimple product Production and

(short-use life)UseSimple product Final consumers

(long-use life)Complex product Final consumersUse


conflict resolution. Firms seeking to establish more rational and integrated selectionmechanisms for product or process innovation are likely to be confounded by thenon-integration of current policy. What is needed is a common framework,although what this exactly entails is still unclear.

Second, if industry is to play a positive role in product policy, the conditionswhereby it can appropriate the competitive benefits of environmental improvementsit makes need to be more clearly defined. Firms will respond innovatively onlywhen there are clear commercial interests in doing so. This will partly be achievedthrough extended producer responsibility imposed through voluntary agreementsand regulations. In the longer term this market-driven reallocation of responsibili-ties will emerge through the creation of new markets for services which replacemany current patterns of product ownership.

References

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Tenside Surf. Det., 32: 84–109.[3] Hocking, M.B. (1991) Relative merits of polystyrene foam and paper in hot drink cups: implications

for packaging. Environ. Manage., 15 (6): 731–747.[4] van den Berg, N.W., Huppes, G. and Wikkerink, J.B.W. (1996) Environment Life Cycle Assessment

of Gas Distribution Systems, GASTECH N.V., Apeldoorn, January.[5] Huang, E.A. and Hunkeler, D.J. (1995) Life Cycle Concepts as Management Tools for Minimizing

Environmental Impacts, Center Report No 131, US-Japan Center for Technology Management,Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TE.

[6] Udo de Haes, H.A. (1993) Applications of life cycle assessment: expectations, drawbacks andperspectives. J. Cleaner Technol., 1(3/4): 131–137.

[7] Keoleian, G.A. (1994) The application of life cycle assessment to design. J. Cleaner Production, 1(3/4):

[8] Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (1995) An Overview of the LifeCycle Approach to Product/Process Environmental Analysis and Management, Paris.

[9] Boustead, I. (1994/95) Eco-profiles of the European plastics industry: Report 2: Olefin FeedstockSources; Report 3: Polyethylene and Polypropylene; Report 4: Polystyrene; Report 5: Co-productallocation in chlorine plants; Report 6: Polyvinyl chloride; Report 7: PVDC (Polyvinylidenechloride), Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe, Brussels.

[10] Franze, H.A., Neumann, U., Marstrander, R. and Brobak, T.J. (1995) Life-Cycle Optimization ofCar Components, Paper to SAE International Congress and Exposition, Detroit, Michigan, Feb.27–Mar. 2.

[11] Hazel, N.J., Walker, P. and Bray, R. (1995) LCA Based Environmental Evaluation of AutomotiveOEM Basecoat Alternatives, paper presented at IBEC ’95, Detroit, 2 November.

[12] Fraunhofer-Institut Munchen (1995) Life Cycle Analysis of Recycling and Recovery of HouseholdPlastics Waste Packaging Materials, APME, Brussels.

[13] Stichting Verpakking en Milieu (1994) Environmental Care for Our Packaging from Cradle toGrave: Life-cycle Analyses for Packaging, The Hague.

[14] Tioxide Group (1995) Making Better Choices: How Tioxide Uses Life Cycle Assessment, Billing-ham.

[15] Porter, M. Competitive Advantage: Creating and Maintaining Superior Performance, FreePress, New York.

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the adoption of life-cycle approaches by industry: patterns and impacts

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