ICOMIA publishes Guide to the Basic Principles of Life Cycle Assessment

The boating industry will, like most other businesses, be faced with ever-stricter environmental controls and changing markets. Boat users will become increasingly aware of environmental matters. For the industry to find solutions to keep ahead of this development is not an easy matter. This is why companies will be looking for tools to help them meet the challenges of tomorrow. Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one such tool. Smart companies will be alert to the general direction of environmental regulations and consumer pressure and will find LCA a useful aid for identifying potential problems before they arise. This may lead to ways of reducing the use of resources and thus – in turn – lead to cost savings. LCA can be used to evaluate the environmental performance of processes and products (inclusive services) from “cradle to cradle” and to identify potential cost savings. This is of relevance to most, if not all, industrial situations where a product is manufactured or where service is provided. LCA identifies the material, energy and waste flows of a product over its entire life-cycle so that the environmental impacts can be determined. LCA can help the industry to identify changes to operations, including product design, which can lead to both environmental benefits and to cost savings