3rd International Conference on Life Cycle Management. From analysis to implementation

The very broad subject of the conference was partitioned into 23 different chapters with a total of 187 oral and 119 poster presentations. The present report gives a description of the conference and the abstracts of the presentations. Life cycle assessment (LCA) bas become a powerful instrument during the last twenty years and its importance is still increasing. This development was possible because the field of application became broader and because clear rules for establishing LCA were developed. Authorities in many countries use LCA as one important basis for decision making. In the past, LCA was used to improve packaging and to decide whether used materials should be recycled or disposed off, by incineration with energy recovery. Recently, the LCA tool was very helpful in Switzerland for screening the environmental impact of different non fossil fuels, in view of new legislation which provides tax exemptions for certain biologically produced fuels. Another important and broadly utilized application of LCA is the evaluation of the environmental impact of different cars. For this purpose LCA integrates the environmental burden caused by different pollutants emitted by cars as carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides or particulate matter (PM 10). In the future, LCA will likely be applied to additional fields, such as investments, where LCA are increasingly used as a tool to rate the sustainability of companies. Fundamental conditions for the use of LCA in all fields are a reliable scientific base of the inventories and a transparent elaboration of the LCA. As LCA will become increasingly important, an internationally harmonized system will have to guarantee that the results of LCA are objective and that the process is traceable. The concept of life cycle management (LCM) is gaining more and more acceptance from all stakeholder groups. Firms begin to see that environmental aspects are rather an opportunity for value creation than a cost driver. Additional benefits are created if the specific implementation of life cycle management approaches does not only address environmental issues, but embraces social and economic aspects from the viewpoint of all relevant stakeholders. This focus on opportunities and value creation opens up new frontiers, where sustainability is the basis also for the long term sustainability of the firm, ensuring stability and economic growth. The real challenge is the operational implementation of life cycle management in strategic management, product and process planning, as well as in day-to-day decision-making in research and development, manufacturing, sales and marketing, communication, etc. This challenge can only be met if life cycle approaches can be easily applied, and social and economic aspects all along the life cycle can be addressed also by acknowledged methods. Concepts and tools are presented that are used for the implementation of life cycle management in the business processes, focusing not only on methodological, but also on management process development issues. Starting from a vision of long term sustainability both for the company and the relevant stakeholders, possible solutions and hands-on experiences are discussed. The Resource Strategy of the European Commission aims at reducing environmental impacts associated with resource use. The impacts of unsustainable resource use include, e.g., climate change due to fossil fuel use, land use and environmental degradation due to mineral extraction and processing, or overexploitation of soil and fish stocks. To decouple environmental impacts from economic growth, a life-cycle approach is adopted. The environmental impacts are considered at each stage of the life cycle of a resource, avoiding that negative impacts are shifted to other environmental media, to other stages of the life cycle, or to other countries. Key to achieving decoupling are three factors: Creating more value while using fewer resources ('resource productivity'); Less impact reducing overall environmental impact per unit of resources used (through 'cleaner' technologies and consumption patterns); Substituting currently used resources with better alternatives. The Commission is now implementing different actions to improve decoupling between economic growth and environmental impacts. Sustainable Consumption and Production are essential requirements for a Sustainable Development (SD). The ways in which products, goods and services are delivered to our societies have become increasingly complex and global. Actions taken by designers, producers, their suppliers, consumers, and communities are all interlinked and can affect each other and the global environment. The private sector is a key provider of solutions in this arena. The fundamental role of Business is to create wealth, provide goods and services, create jobs, pay taxes, innovate, invest, improve efficiency and act responsibly. The members of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development have a shared commitment to SD through economic growth, ecological balance and social progress. This initiative concentrates its efforts on leveraging existing reports, documents, training kits and on sharing good practice rather than creating new knowledge