A proposed tool to integrate environmental and economical assessments of products

Abstract

An attempt has been made to interpret the outcomes of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in terms of environmental costs. This attempt ensures the environmental accountability of the products while LCA ensures their eco-friendly nature. Keeping this as an objective, a Life Cycle Environmental Cost Analysis (LCECA) model was developed. This new tool incorporates costing into the LCA practice. This model prescribes a life cycle environmental cost model to estimate and correlate the effects of these costs in all the life cycle stages of the product. The newly developed categories of eco-costs are: costs of effluent treatment/control/disposal, environmental management systems, eco-taxes, rehabilitation, energy and savings of recycling and reuse strategies. The mathematical model of LCECA determines quantitative expressions between the total cost of products and the various eco-costs. The eco-costs of the alternatives are compared with the computational LCECA model. This method enables the environmental as well as the economic assessment of products, which leads to cost-effective, eco-friendly design of products. © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.