Product Life Cycle Assessment and Management

This course builds students' competencies in environmental life cycle assessment (ICA) and life cycle management of products. Course content covers product sustainability management, life cycle thinking, product stewardship approaches. It includes life-cycle assessment of raw materials and energy rescues, manufacturing and processing, use, end-of-life and recycling, supply-chain and logistics. The content follows international standards and related guidance for study scoping, functional unit, inventory, impact assessment and interpretation. Management applications include ecodesign, product benchmarking, ecolabelling and green marketing. The course also presents strengths, limitations and weaknesses of sustainability performance assessment of products. Students apply quantitative approaches including use of ICA software and databases.