Lifecycle Assessment
What is Life Cycle Assessment?
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a method of quantifying the environmental load of products by analysing negative environmental impact imposed by resources consumption and discharge over the products’ entire life cycle (raw material extraction → raw material production → product production → logistics → use → disposal). LCA enables evaluation of the negative environmental impact of a product in each life cycle stage or during the entire life cycle.
Results of LCA
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Expected Effects of LCA
Implementation of LCA allows better informed decisions to be made, for example:
- It is possible to choose the most appropriate from several environmental technologies.
- It is possible to know which stages in the entire life cycle are most important for reducing negative environmental impact.
- It is possible to prevent a certain problem from causing a new negative environmental impact or from spreading or shifting to other stage(s) in the life cycle.
- It is possible to gain the grounds for making decisions on scientific and objective environmental policies.
- It is possible to provide and publicise environmental information in an accurate and timely manner.
Implementing LCA at KYOCERA Document Solutions
By implementing LCA, KYOCERA Document Solutions can discover the stage(s) where highest negative environmental impact is produced out of the entire life cycle of products or services, to determine which areas are most beneficial to focus on. For example, the figure below shows the typical LCA for a KYOCERA product's life cycle, focusing on the negative environmental impact that could cause global warming at each stage. In this case, the key stages for reducing negative environmental impact are the raw materials stage and the customer use stage. To reduce negative environmental impact in the future, it can be said that it would be effective to focus on these two stages first, carry out more detailed analysis, and take appropriate measures.
KYOCERA Document Solutions implements LCA on all its products, striving to reduce negative environmental impact by using information obtained from the results of LCA, carefully selecting the raw materials of products and consumables and developing products that aim for a reduction in the use of power and other resources during use. It is worth noting that even with KYOCERA Document Solutions' more resource-efficient consumables system, the environmental impact of consumables is the second largest.
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