VALVE MAGAZINE Summer 2024

LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENTS

conducted in the s, LCAs have waxed and waned in popularity over time depending on the concerns of the day. Today, OEMs are facing greater demand for transpar ency into the “sustainability” of their products, spurred by environmentally conscious consumers as well as proposed legislation like the EU’s PEF guidelines. For suppliers, this means customers may be looking for data into process or materials operations. Markus Beer, group lead for sustainability at automotive consultant rm Forward Engineering GmbH, explains that OEMs conducting LCAs need Scope emissions data, obtained from carbon emissions data gathered from their suppliers. He adds that in addition to working with customers, “Some Tier s and s do LCAs for other reasons — for example, they may want to di erentiate their products against other materials or against competitors’ products.” “The value of LCA really exists in its ability to, as a manufacturer, model all of your variables and nd the lowest impact solution,” notes Ollie Taylor, associate director at sustainability consulting rm Anthesis Group. “LCA isn’t purely about reporting. It’s much more about nding optimization and eco-design. It’s a decision support tool. The trouble with LCA is, of course, that it’s time-consuming. And it can be very complex.” Therefore, This demo project from MarineShift360 illustrates the way the tool breaks down GWP/CO2 e for each component of a boat. Source: Anthesis

a number of tools are available today to simplify the process according to a company’s needs. LCA Tools and Approaches One option is to employ a third-party consulting rm, in which case consultants will work with the company to de ne goals and parameters for the project, collect needed data and use their preferred or in-house software and data bases to generate an impact report. If a company wants to learn more about its carbon footprint data directly, there are now numerous software applications available — ranging in complexity, cost and target industry — that companies can use to conduct an LCA themselves. While not an exhaustive list, common LCA software plat forms include expert-level tools like LCA for Experts (formerly known as GaBi), from software and consulting services company Sphera; SimaPro, from PRé Sustainability; and Umberto, from iPoint-systems GmbH . There are also free, simpli ed tools available such as Greendelta’s openLCA, a several industry-speci c tools such as the marine market’s MarineShift , developed by Anthesis Group in partnership with th Hour Racing. Companies can perform LCAs through either a top-down or bottom-up approach. A faster, top-down LCA will rely on data readily available in databases. Databases generate carbon emissions calculations based on averages of data provided to the database creator by primary suppliers. Because the data is based on modeled averages and not

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VALVE MAGAZINE

SUMMER 2024