Under an initiative organised by UNEP together with partners, several projects encouraging lifecycle thinking have been presented at a major conference.

The Life Cycle Initiative promotes consideration of the environmental, social and economic impacts of a product over its entire life and is seen as a solution for sustainable consumption and production.

Many of the Initiative’s projects were presented in Bordeaux, France from 28 August to 2 September at the 7th International Conference on Life Cycle Management - a leading conference on environmental, economical and social sustainability.

The Initiative presented how Life Cycle Management can and is being adopted by small-to medium-sized enterprises thanks to its Life Cycle Management Capability Maturity Model. This was illustrated with concrete examples from pilot phase companies in India, Cameroon and South Africa.

A side-event was also dedicated to the Initiative’s long-term project of developing global quality Life Cycle data. There, 30 experts from 14 developed and developing countries discussed the review of data and criteria for meeting Global Guidance Principles.

The Initiative furthermore presented its groundbreaking work on Organisational Life Cycle Assessment (O-LCA), which aims to develop common practices and standards for life cycle assessments of organisations. This drew significant interest, as the project supports implementation of a new ISO Standard on the topic. Project leaders elaborated on the O-LCA project status outcomes, including the launch of the ‘Guidance on Organisational Life Cycle Assessment’ publication.

More than 600 international decision makers, professionals and academics from science, industry, NGOs and public bodies attended the event, whose theme was ‘Mainstreaming Life Cycle Management for Sustainable Value Creation’.

The Initiative is being carried out by UNEP together with the Society of Environmental Toxicity and Chemistry.

For further details, please click here
or contact the leading Life Cycle Initiative Programme Officer Llorenc.Mila-I-Canals@unep.org