Life Cycle Initiative

International Life Cycle Partnership for a sustainable world

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) launched an International Life Cycle Partnership, known as the Life Cycle Initiative, to enable users around the world to put life cycle thinking into effective practice. The initiative responds the call by Governments around the world for a life cycle economy in the Malmo Declaration (2000). It contributes to the 10-Year Framework of Programmes to promote sustainable consumption and production patterns, as requested at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002).

Life Cycle Thinking

Life cycle is about going beyond the traditional focus on production site and manufacturing processes to include the environmental, social, and economic impact of a product over its entire life cycle, from cradle to grave.

Objectives

• Enhance the global consensus and relevance of existing and emerging life cycle approaches methodology;
  
  
• Facilitate the use of life cycle approaches worldwide by encouraging life cycle thinking in decision-making in business, government and the general public about natural resources, materials and products targeted at consumption clusters;
  
  
• Expand capability worldwide to apply and improve life cycle approaches.

For more information on Life Cycle Thinking, Life Cycle Management (LCM), and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) please see the Life Cycle Thinking Theme, and the Life Cycle Initiative website.

"We must develop production and consumption policies to improve the products and services provided, while reducing environmental and health impacts, using, where appropriate, science-based approaches, such as life cycle analysis"
World Summit on Sustainable Development, 2002