Life Cycle Thinking in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises - Status Quo and Strategic Needs in the Electronics Sector

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is considered as the most advanced tool for improving the environmental performance of products. There are however barriers that reduce its implementation, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), such as data intensity, costs, and expertise required to run the LCA studies. The European project "LCA to go" develops sectoral methods and tools for bio-based plastics, industrial machinery, electronics (including printed circuit boards, semiconductors and passive components), renewable energy, sensors and smart textiles. These sectors have been chosen, as the manufacturers show a high interest in making clear the environmental benefits of their products to customers and in prioritizing so they can reduce their environmental impacts. The project has to bridge the language gap between the environmental terminology used in LCAs and the engineering language of product developers. The overall goal of the project is to develop LCA webtools customized for SMEs.