Improving Environmental Performance Through Life Cycle Assessment and Digital Prototyping

Paper or plastic? Cloth or disposable? Whether you’re talking about grocery bags or diapers, it’s often hard to know which option is the most sustainable. That’s because a perfect answer seldom exists (except for groceries, where a reusable cloth bag is the clear winner) and trade-offs between competing values are almost inescapable.

Is it better to buy a durable product that will last for years or one that will be thrown away after a single use? The answer seems obvious, but it isn’t. Washing cloth diapers uses lots of energy, water, and detergent, and most cotton is grown with pesticides that—like detergent—can pollute water supplies. Yet the millions of disposables sold every year are made of plastic and wood pulp, and are rapidly filling landfills. Concerns about the impact on public health add another dimension to the equation.

Adding Up the Environmental Impact of a Product

One way to identify and then compare the environmental impacts of a product is to conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA). An LCA tabulates the amount of total energy consumed in the creation, use, maintenance, transportation, and disposal or recycling of a product. It accounts for the materials used in the product and its packaging, as well as water usage, pollution, and impact on habitat.

At its most simplistic, an LCA counts all the inputs and outputs of a product and translates them into the key environmental metrics of energy and pollution. The impact of one option (such as cloth diapers) can then be compared with another option (such as disposables). In theory, the analysis will reveal the “right” answer. In practice, however, the factors in the equation are far more complex and the analysis inevitably reflects the values of the person conducting the assessment. Is the total amount of energy used throughout a product’s lifetime more important than the materials used? Is either factor more important than the amount of waste produced over the same period?

As so frequently happens, the correct answer is: “It depends.” The true value of a lifecycle assessment is in helping consumers, manufacturers, and policy-makers ask the right questions, rather than in providing perfect and irrefutable answers. To a consumer worried about the waste stream in her community, an assessment can lead her to choose cloth diapers over disposables. To a manufacturer that must tightly manage its operating expenses, an assessment can help identify opportunities for lowering energy bills or materials costs. And for policy-makers who must make “big-bet” infrastructure investments, an LCA can help predict the long-term impact of one choice versus another.

Making Choices Based on Life Cycle Assessment

As concern over the environmental impact of individual actions increases, the terminology and philosophy of LCAs is becoming more commonplace. Eco-journalist Umbra Fisk uses life cycle concepts to help readers make more earth-friendly choices in the online magazine Grist. A New York Times op-ed piece challenges the common wisdom that locally produced food is always a better ecological choice than meat or vegetables that travel many miles to one’s plate. And a recent study by the Electric Power Research Institute and the National Resources Defense Council grabbed headlines when it concluded that the widespread use of plug-in hybrid vehicles can dramatically reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions in the next 40 years, regardless of the type of fuel used to generate electricity.

The impact of such life cycle analyses can be profound for individuals, organizations, and society as a whole. The end-to-end scope helps not only when comparing alternative choices, but by revealing opportunities for improvement at every stage of a product’s life.

How Apparel-Maker Patagonia Reduced Its Environmental Impact

For example, when apparel-maker Patagonia discovered that a cotton shirt consumes three times more petroleum in its manufacture and lifetime care than one made of synthetic fibers—thanks to the fertilizers used to grow the cotton and the extra effort needed to keep it clean—the company converted to 100 percent organic cotton. Patagonia also honed the process by which it creates, sells, and reclaims a polyester garment at the end of its useful life so its fibers can be recycled and born anew. For Patagonia, the life cycle assessment of a shirt highlighted multiple spots where its product’s environmental impact could be reduced.

Once a manufacturer understands the impact of its product and wants to find a better way, what can it do? Like Patagonia, it can consider the merits of using a better version of the same material (organic instead of conventionally raised cotton) and of switching to or experimenting with alternative materials (synthetic fibers). It can also review its manufacturing process and seek to lessen the amount of energy and pollution produced during the product’s useful life.

Using Digital Prototyping to Reduce Environmental Impact

The latest design software can facilitate this analysis. The Autodesk Digital Prototyping Solution allows a manufacturer to create a single digital model of a product to test its form, fit, and function, so a designer can experiment with different materials quickly and easily. If the design team wants to use recycled materials to replace virgin feedstocks, or determine whether a part can be downsized (thus saving materials) and still meet safety standards, it can understand the effect of that change without investing a penny in physical prototypes or testing.

Companies can also reduce a product’s overall energy footprint with the help of such simulations. Motors can be right-sized to minimize lifetime energy use. Packaging can be reworked to use fewer materials and allow more items to be shipped in the same amount of space, thus reducing the fuel needed for shipment. The opportunities for improvement are limited only by the imagination of the designer. With the help of digital prototypes, an eco-savvy team can optimize the product’s performance while reducing its environmental footprint.

Together, life cycle assessments and digital prototypes help to explain the impact of our choices and enable us to make better decisions for ourselves and for the planet.