Identifying Pathways to More Sustainable Products and Services

Products are designed to provide service for their owners, e.g. vehicles and miles; lamps and illumination; televisions and entertainment; wash machines and clean clothes. However, a product is actually a product system that incurs environmental burdens (energy/materials consumed and emissions released) not only during manufacture but also during lifetime use and maintenance. Tracking and quantifying these burdens among components of the ecosphere (hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, atmosphere) can be consolidated into a set of environmental metrics using the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. The resulting set of metrics provides an environmental profile for a product system. EcoSpherica works with clients to quantify the environmental profiles of their product systems and to identify ways to minimize them and associated costs. The result is a more sustainable product supporting a more sustainable future.