Title
Measuring product sustainability: A literature review
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Date of Original Version
1-1-2020
Abstract
Since the turn of the new millennium, public awareness of sustainability has dramatically increased. Terms like “climate change” and “renewable energy” have become common household phrases. Sustainability is a holistic term referring to three main systems: humans, the economy, and the environment. Yet measuring the sustainability of a product remains difficult. The leading method for measuring the “eco-effectiveness” of a product is the Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) concept. C2C encourages products to be manufactured with alternative materials that are both nonhazardous and biodegradable, thus improving the output from industry into the environment. A main criticism of the C2C concept is that some aspects of a product's lifecycle, such as transportation or use, are not considered. For that reason, the existing literature suggests combining C2C with an Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (ELCA), which incorporates more environmental aspects into a product. The combination of C2C and ELCA does not, however, take into account human behavior. This paper suggests that product design should also include a Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA), which is a relatively new method of rating human factors into a product. This literature review therefore calls for a more inclusive method of measuring the three conventional levels of sustainability.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
Proceedings of the 2016 Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference, ISERC 2016
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Le, Thu Trang, Jan Engel, and Gretchen A. Macht. "Measuring product sustainability: A literature review." Proceedings of the 2016 Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference, ISERC 2016 (2020): 703-708. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/mcise_facpubs/569