Life Cycle Thinking Blog

Walmart issues new product disclosure and ban rules.

Recommend reading “Climate change: Corporate sustainability in the supply chain”

A very intense and challenging piece you might want to ponder as you think about what “sustainability” means (hang in there for the last half of the article):
Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist by Paul Kingsnorth
Like all of us, I am a foot soldier of empire. It is the empire of Homo sapiens sapiens and it stretches from Tasmania to Baffin Island. Like all empires, it is built on expropriation and exploitation, and like all empires it dresses these things up in the language of morality and duty…

Very useful guide on how to go about engaging your employees into sustainability and watch the culture change: Toward Engagement 2.0
While these case studies are from companies who “get” sustainability, there are some good suggestions for how to develop sustainability-think for all employees and yield real value for any company at any stage. Lots of resources, too.

Interesting presentation by Bresseler company in how they do quick versions of life cycle analysis in an iterative process in doing product design: http://www.bresslergroup.com/webinar/cut-the-crap/video.php
I don’t know the company, but I like their way of thinking.

The American Chemistry Society has launched it’s new website on sustainability: www.acs.org/sustainability.
Yours truly led development of the site as a portal for those interested in chemistry and sustainability and, in particular, to learn what the American Chemical Society and its members are doing and can do to understand and create chemical solutions sustainably.

I agree with the article by Mark McElroy “Do LCAs Measure Up To Sustainability?” He says they do not, because they are too narrowly focused on eco-efficiency only and ignore context.
As I’ve blogged before, sustainability should be about how we do what we do and not a collation of LCA’s. At best LCA’s help inform decisions as we try to understand the dynamic systems of which products and users are a part. I use the phrase “life cycle thinking” to describe how we need to recognize the potential intended and unintended consequences of our actions. Understanding contexts and consequences.

Article by Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen illustrates why “sustainability” is just not the right goal:
Over-Innovation Makes U.S. Firms Suck At Sustainability The same forces that drive U.S. companies to become the greatest innovators are the ones that make them the biggest environmental sinners.

Sustainability is about the how and not the why. It is a how to accomplish things with minimum adverse impact now or in the future, preserving resources for continuous use and supporting life using long-range life cycle thinking. Acting sustainably. The “why” is to make this world a better place to live in – a world where everyone has opportunities to thrive physically, intellectually and emotionally. A world of wonderful changes.

Current and recent events and articles