Life cycle thinking is an approach to becoming mindful of how everyday life affects the

environment. This approach evaluates how both consuming products and engaging in activities
impacts the environment but it not only evaluates them at one single step, but takes
a holistic picture of an entire product or activity system. This means when talking about a
product and taking a life cycle thinking approach, what is actually being evaluated is the impact
of the activity of consuming that product. This is because by consuming a product, a series of
associated activities are required to make it happen. For example, the raw material extraction,
material processing, transportation, distribution, consumption, reuse/recycling, and disposal must
all be considered when evaluating the environmental impact. This is called the life cycle of a
product. The overall idea of making a holistic evaluation of a system's effect can be defined as
life cycle thinking.

APPROACHES

There are many different approaches to life cycle thinking that all involve looking at life cycle-
generated impacts and ways to minimize these impacts. An important component to life cycle
approaches is avoiding burden shifting, in other words, ensuring that improvements in one stage
are not achieved at the expense of another stage. Approaches of impact measurement focus on
decreasing environmental impact and resource use throughout all stages of a process.

Commonly used approaches:

Life-cycle assessment

Life-cycle assessment (LCA or life cycle analysis) is a technique used to assess potential
environmental impacts of a product at different stages of its life. This technique takes a "cradle-
to-grave" or a "cradle to cradle" approach and looks at environmental impacts that occur
throughout the lifetime of a product from raw material extraction, manufacturing and processing,
distribution, use, repair and maintenance, disposal and recycling.

Life cycle management (LCM)

Life cycle management is a business approach to manage the total life cycle of products and
services. It follows the life cycle thinking that businesses, through the activities they must
perform, have environmental, social and economic impacts. LCM is used to understand and
analyze life cycle stages of products and services of a business, identify potential economic,
social or environmental risks and opportunities at each stage and create ways to act upon those
opportunities and reduce potential risks.

Life cycle costing (LCC)

Life cycle costing (or life cycle cost analysis) is the total cost analysis of a process or system.
This includes costs incurred over the life of the system and is frequently used to find most cost-
effective means for providing goods and services.

Design for the Environment

Design for the Environment Program (DfE) was created in 1992 by the United States
Environmental Protection Agency and works to prevent pollution and the reduce the risks
pollution presents to humans and the environment. The main goals of the DfE are to promote
green cleaning, recognize safer industrial and consumer products through safer product labeling,
define best practices in production and manufacturing, and identify safer chemicals for these
processes based on life cycle thinking. Having said this they must know that the air pollution in
USA has the mixing of liquid, solid, gaseous, odour and noise pollution which is dangerous for
human being, animals and plants.

Product service system

Product service systems (PSS) are sets of marketable products and services that work together
to fulfill a user’s needs. This new approach is a result of firms realizing that services in
combination with products can provide higher profits and customer satisfaction then simply
selling products alone. Firms that use PSS work to find ways to maximize the use of their
product throughout its lifetime, using services to supplement its usage. PSS has been seen to
have smaller environmental impact than traditional business models, as the focus on services has
led to a decrease in material production and consumption. This applies to life cycle thinking
because it involves looking at the life-cycle cost of a product (i.e. maintenance and storage costs)
for a consumer and reducing that cost by providing services with the purchased good.

Integrated product policy (IPP)

Integrated product policy works to minimize environmental degradation caused by products by

looking at all phases of a product’s life-cycle to pinpoint where taking action is most effective.
This also uses a cradle-to-grave approach when looking at a product’s life. In addition, it is
important that policies avoid burden shifting and do not decrease environment emissions at one
stage of development at the expense of another. Policy measures used to action upon
recommendations include economic instruments, substance bans, voluntary agreements,
environmental labeling and product design guidelines.