The cycle of making environmentally friendly business decisions
Because life cycle assessments consider all phases of a product’s life cycle, LCA results can literally benefit all departments in a company. Making more sustainable decisions, however, is often an iterative process, and LCA results are complex enough that most departments can’t do their own interpretation.
To understand the impact of updated product design, for instance, a product designer would have to ask for a new LCA to be done. The LCA department would perhaps have to go through another round of data collection. This means a lot of waiting and a lot of work. It’s clear why this cycle gets in the way of a company fully embracing sustainability.
Reducing the workload of sharing complex information
After several large, progressive companies approached PRé with their own version of this problem, we decided to develop a solution that could be shared.
One goal was to make it easier to collect data from suppliers, departments and other stakeholders. To do so, we developed a user-friendly online survey tool – SimaPro Collect.
Another goal was to put more control in the hands of the people who are going to use the LCA results. We developed a second online tool, SimaPro Share, which can be used to change and understand product scenarios without input from the sustainability department. This cuts down on the waiting time and reduces the workload for LCA professionals. Together, these two tools can be reached via an online platform.
