Life Cycle
The term "life cycle" refers to all of the major activities in the course of the product's life-span from its manufacture, use, and maintenance, to its final disposal, including the raw materials required to manufacture the product.
More and more people are basing their decisions on life cycle information, in an effort to gain the most from their actions without unintentionally jeopardizing their ability to thrive in the future. Life cycle thinking applies to the daily decisions we make at our homes and workplaces and how we develop our communities. Citizens, businesses, and governments are finding ways to promote life cycle thinking and balance the impacts of their choices.
Thinking in terms of the life cycle, businesses recognize that each choice sets the stage for not only how the product will look and function, but also for how it will impact the environment and the community as it is manufactured, used, maintained, and then either disposed, re-used, or recycled.
A Life Cycle Approach Promotes:
- Awareness that our selections are not isolated, but influence a larger system.
- Making choices for the longer term and considering all environmental and social issues associated with them.
- Improving entire systems, not single parts of systems, by avoiding decisions that fix one environmental problem but cause another unexpected or costly environmental problem.
- Informed selections, but not necessarily 'right' or 'wrong' ones. Life cycle thinking simply helps us put our decisions in context with facts from all parts of the system or life cycle.
"...All decisions in government and business should be scrutinized with the 'sustainability lens', from a life cycle perspective"
Jacqueline Aloisi de Larderel
Former Assistant Executive Director
United Nations Environmental Program
Sustainable Interiors understands that the life cycle mindset enables optimal stewardship for every flooring opportunity. Whether it be increasing the amount of "turns" for our military housing managers, maximizing life through an effective carpet maintenance plan, encouraging a shift from hard to soft goods in certain applications, or simply finding ways to extend the useful life of existing materials. Our passion is to stay as close to the top of the EPA triangle (reduce) as possible. Reducing the amount of natural resources, time, and money consumed in a specific flooring project helps govern our consultative approach.
