Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) is about going beyond the traditional focus on production site and manufacturing processes to include environmental, social and economic impacts of a product over its entire life cycle.

The main goals of LCT are to reduce a product’s resource use and emissions to the environment as well as improve its socio-economic performance through its life cycle. This may facilitate links between the economic, social and environmental dimensions within an organization and through its entire value chain.

Looking at the industrial sector, taking LCT as an approach means going beyond the more narrow traditional focus on an enterprise’s production facility. A product life cycle can begin with the extraction of raw materials from natural resources in the ground and the energy generation. Materials and energy are then part of production, packaging, distribution, use, maintenance, and eventually recycling, reuse, recovery or final disposal.

In each life cycle stage there is the potential to reduce resource consumption and improve the performance of products.

Related EPIs

Chemicals in products
Hazardous chemicals in electronics
Pharmaceutical pollutants

Related people

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Markos Ieridis

I am a consultant, supporting UNEP on topics related to the use of chemicals in various products and the potential impact these can have on human health and the environment.

Sandra
Sandra Averous
Within UNEP’s Chemicals and Health Branch, I am in charge of projects on Chemicals in Products in the buildings, textiles, toys and electronics sectors, chemicals and plastics, sustainable and green chemistry. Furthermore, I am overseeing the Secretariat of the Global Mercury partnership.
Llorenc Mila I Canals
I am a generalist environmental scientist passionately driven to reduce the environmental impacts of consumption and production systems. This includes driving the development of tools enabling the comprehensive assessment of environmental impacts of chemicals as they are used in products, over their entire life cycle (i.e. from the extraction of their raw materials, processing and manufacturing into products, their use, maintenance and operation phase, and finally at the end of use their repurposing into new products, or disposal).This kind of assessment helps us guide the selection of suitable alternatives to chemicals of concern while avoiding regrettable substitutions. With a PhD
Feng Wang
I work as a Programme Officer in UNEP in its Paris office. I manage projects in the areas of Life Cycle Thinking, Sustainable Consumption and Production and Circular Economy, to promote resource efficiency and pollution reduction in many sectors such as plastics, electronics, food and chemicals. In my current work, we develop methodologies and tools to quantify the environmental impacts of chemicals, to enable comparison and identification of alternatives.Feng holds a Doctorate Degree from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, on topics of eco-design and waste management of electronics products. Before joining UNEP, I worked as a researcher in

Related projects

Related Topics

Circularity
Circularity for electronics in Latin America and the Caribbean
E-waste
view all topics

Articles of interest

6 resources found

Report

A Chemicals Perspective on Designing with Sustainable Plastics: Goals, Considerations and Trade-offs

by
OECD
|
December 2021
The development of plastic products does not systematically take sustainability, particularly from a chemicals perspective, into account. This report seeks to enable the creation of inherently sustainable plastic products by integrating sustainable chemistry thinking in the design process. By applying a chemicals lens during the plastic material selection process, designers and engineers can make informed decisions to incorporate sustainable plastic during the conceptualisation phase of their products. The report provides an integrated approach to sustainable plastic selection from a chemicals
Emerging Policy Issues: Chemicals in products
Topics: Life Cycle
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Report

Single-Use Plastic Products (SUPP) and their alternatives: Recommendations from Life Cycle Assessments

by
UNEP Life Cycle Initiative
|
February 2021
UN Environment Programme (UNEP) defines single use plastic products as “an umbrella term for different types of products that are typically used once before being thrown away or recycled” (UNEP 2018), which includes food packaging, bottles, straws, containers, cups, cutlery and shopping bags. It has been estimated that about 100-150 million tonnes of plastics are produced for single use products and about 8 million tonnes of plastics are dumped into the oceans every year (Plastics Oceans 2019)There is a need
Emerging Policy Issues: Chemicals in products
Topics: Life Cycle
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Manuals and toolkits

Guidance to Provide Footprint Information on Sustainable Alternatives

by
Life Cycle Initiative
|
May 2020
As there is an increase in communication of concrete recommendations for better solutions and alternatives to build a better economy that protects nature, there is an increased need to back these recommendations with facts and figures about how they contribute to reduce our impact on the planet.In this sense, the life cycle team has pulled together a very simple 2-page guidance on elements to consider when backing up your recommendations with strong life-cycle based science. The 2-pager also provides links
Emerging Policy Issues: Chemicals in products
Topics: Life Cycle
Website

SCP Hotspots Analysis Tool (SCP-HAT)

January 2020
The SCP Hotspots Analysis Tool (SCP-HAT) aims at identifying the hot spot areas of unsustainable production and consumption in order to support setting priorities in national SCP and climate policies.
Emerging Policy Issues: Chemicals in products
Topics: Life Cycle Knowledge Management