Impacts throughout the product lifecycle

Industrial activity is at the crossroads of environmental problems relating to products and design choices influence every stage in the product lifecycle upstream of this activity.

Indeed it is true that :

• > every product requires material and energy in order to be manufactured
• > every product needs to be packaged and transported
• > every product or packaging will sooner or later become waste

Since the « zero impact » product does not exist, it is necessary to quantify all the environmental impacts at every stage in order to determine the most efficient choices. It is possible on that basis to determine the ecological quality of products.