Impacts through the lifecycle of a product

Highlighting how aspects of product design, construction, distribution, use and disposal can have significant effects on the environment.

Reducing the environmental impacts of products and their supply chains will be fundamental to all organisations in the coming years. While much of the focus to date has been on the development and sourcing of sustainable materials (which of course is vital), impacts can occur at all stages in the life of a product – from its design through to the end of its life. This article will highlight some key areas for consideration for the design, development, production, distribution, use, and ultimate disposal of products in order to minimise its impacts.

Design and development

The design and development phase is arguably the single most important part of the lifecycle. Decisions made during this aspect of the project will to a large extent determine the product’s impacts throughout the rest of its life. Material selection – both in terms of the material itself and from where it is sourced – is crucial. If a material with a lower environmental impact is chosen, it must still meet the performance requirements for its intended application. Durability should also be considered, as a product that is built to last will have a lower environmental impact per wear or use over the course of its life.

Reengineering a product to reduce its weight will also lower the impacts of the materials used, as well as the effects of transporting the materials and the finished product. However, this may not always be possible, depending on any performance requirements that the product must meet as well as the intended design and aesthetics.

Increasingly at this stage, designers and product developers are looking ahead to the end of the product’s life and considering how it should be (or is likely to be) disposed of. This can lead to the selection of materials that can be recycled, a reduction in the number of different materials or components used, and consideration of what might happen to the item at the end of its life.

For some industries, the sampling process can have a high impact. This comes from the manufacturing of the samples themselves and from shipping them to destinations all around the world – typically by air freight, which has a global warming impact that is around 50 times greater than shipping by sea. The application of modern design packages that can create high quality three-dimensional (3D) visualisations could support a reduction in the number of sample iterations of a particular product that need to be made.

Further opportunities to minimise the impact of air-freighting samples include investigating if the amount of packaging used can be reduced, or if the samples can be made closer to market.

Materials

For most products, the single biggest source of carbon emissions will come from the materials and components used in its manufacture.

There is no single criterion or definition for a ‘sustainable’ material. Considerations include, for example, whether or not it needs to be bio-based, be manufactured with recycled content, or be recyclable at the end of the product’s life.

Compromises often have to be made, as it is unlikely that a material will meet every sustainability criterion. For instance, natural rubber and leather have both been linked to deforestation. However, they are durable, natural materials that do not lead to additional fossil fuels being extracted and consumed. There are also examples of materials marketed as ‘bio-based’ that repurpose an existing waste stream (often from the food industry) which have been blended with plastic or have a plastic backer applied to enable them to exhibit sufficient strength.

Impacts will also vary between manufacturers of the same type of item. A leather produced in a tannery working to high environmental standards that has improved its energy and water efficiency, reduced effluent discharges, and can demonstrate that the hides it uses are not linked to deforestation will have a much lower environmental impact than a tannery which does not operate to the same standards.

The wider supply chain Is also important. It Is pointless to identify a material with a lower environmental impact if that material then must be flown around the world in order to meet production deadlines.

Production and supply

Any initiatives that can be undertaken in manufacturing sites to minimise material waste and reduce the number of reject products will not only minimise environmental, impacts but also reduce costs. What can be done will obviously vary, according to the type of product being produce. For industries working with rolls or sheets of materials that are cut into the required pieces for further processing, anything that can be done to improve the cutting efficiency of those items could offer very real benefits.

It is inevitable that some waste will still be generated throughout the production process. Identifying the different waste streams and the optimal way to repurpose, recycle or dispose of each of them is another way to reduce the overall production impact.

The use of 3D printing opens up new opportunities for the manufacture of some components or even finished products, and could allow products to be made closer to market and potentially even made to order for an individual consumer. This in turn would minimise waste and the risk of over-production. The energy efficiency of manufacturing sites should also be considered, as this can also lead to cost savings at a time when energy prices have escalated in many parts of the world. Generating electricity on-site through renewable sources such as solar panels is ideal. However, even more simple and lower-cost measures such as the installation of energy-efficient equipment, correctly maintaining existing equipment, not leaving machinery switched on when not in use, the installation of LED lighting and reviewing practices for heating and cooling of production areas, can give substantial reductions.

The destruction of unwanted and unsold products is a huge source of environmental impacts. As an example, it is estimated that 40 per cent of all fashion items being produced are sold at a markdown or destroyed. The modern consumer is used to everything being available on demand, with next-day delivery services from e-commerce sites being commonplace. In order to fulfil this demand and to minimise the risk of lost sales, there can be a tendency to over-stock and therefore over-produce. This is where a greater focus on improving forecasting and stock management processes is crucial, although it is undoubtedly not an easy problem to solve. Nevertheless, a change in approach is likely to be required, as the European Union is intending to outlaw the destruction of some unsold product types, including textile items.

Distribution and sale

When considering environmental impacts that could be incurred in getting products from the point of manufacture to the end consumer, the most important factor is the freight method used. This is specifically the avoidance of air freight, which is not only costly from a financial perspective, but also in terms of the environmental impacts incurred.

Sea freight has a very low impact – in fact, it is lower than transporting goods by road. Therefore, a common distribution model of manufacturing sites based in Asia shipping by sea to Western countries does not incur a big impact from transportation, and this impact is likely to decrease even further as the adoption of biofuels increases. ‘On-shoring’ of production (locating business operations or manufacturing processes within the same national borders as the company’s home base) or ‘near-shoring’ (relocating operations to a nearby country or region which often has lower labour costs) could therefore in some cases increase the overall impact of a product as low impact sea shipping is replaced with higher impact road transportation.

CO2e emissions for different forms of freight transportation
Freight method	Kg CO2e impact per tonne transported 1 km
Sea (container ship 8,000+TEU)	0.01266
Road (diesel HGV >3.5 to 33 t)	0.61562
Air (long-haul freight flight to or from the UK)	1.099032
CO2e is a measure used for the warming potential of all greenhouse gases using carbon dioxide as a baseline. For example, over a period of 100 years, 1 kg of methane has a CO2e of 28, because over those 100 years its warming effect is 28 times higher than that of carbon dioxide.

Efficient packaging of finished goods for shipment can also be used to reduce costs and environmental impacts. this can potentially be achieved through selecting a more appropriate packaging size or through re-engineering the packaging to consume less materials.

While there are many different finish options available today to create striking and appealing packaging, many of these options will have a higher impact due to increased consumption of inks and other consumables. Simpler packaging which carries less printing is better for the environment, and the use of alternative inks (such as the soy variety) are also becoming commonplace in the packaging industry.

Emissions associated with any retail stores under the organisation’s operational control will need to be factored in. This will include areas such as energy efficiency, energy sourcing and the footprint of any fixtures and fittings in the stores. Transporting goods to individual stores or e-commerce shipments from distribution centres to consumers must also be taken into account, with the relative impacts of different freight methods already having been previously discussed in this article.

Product use

A key factor in determining a product’s impact during its use phase is how long it lasts. It is increasingly recognised that the impacts of an item should be in some way divided by how many times it can be used or worn. Products should be engineered and tested to ensure that they are robust and not likely to fail prematurely.

The comfort of an item is also crucial, and maintaining that comfort through the life of a product is also vital – whether that is for something that is worn (for example, footwear, clothing or PPE) or a piece of furniture that will typically be expected to remain comfortable to use over a long period of time.

The impacts incurred in cleaning and maintaining an item will need to be considered as part of the use phase. Any textile items such as garments and household textiles will incur impacts through the washing process. This will include the electricity used to power the washing machine, as well as the water and any washing detergents that are used. Again, different product types will have different cleaning and maintenance requirements, and therefore different sources of impacts.

Another issue that is also under scrutiny is the possibility for microfibres or microplastics to shed or break away from items during wear or use, although this can be difficult to quantify.

For single-use products (such as gloves used to conduct medical examinations), the use phase may be less relevant.

End-of-life

Eventually, all products and materials will reach a point where it is no longer viable to continue to use them or to repair them. The end-of-life options available to dispose of an item in a sustainable way will depend on what that item is, as well as the local recycling and waste disposal infrastructure.

It is important for companies to consider from the initial design phase where an item is likely to end up at the end of its life and how it could be processed. For instance, it may be possible for a design to be changed to make an item easier to disassemble for recycling, and some of the materials used could perhaps be swapped for others that are more readily recyclable.

It may even be possible for the company to set up its own dedicated take-back scheme to ensure that the items it places onto the market will end up being processed in the most sustainable way at the end of their life. With ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’ (EPR) schemes becoming more prevalent for many different product types – particularly within the European Union – companies will increasingly need to consider and take responsibility for the full lifecycle of their products.

Summing up

Over the course of this article, an overview has been provided of the most likely causes of environmental impacts throughout the product lifecycle and what actions can be taken in order to mitigate them.

---