Nowadays, consumers are more aware of products' sustainability and circular aspects. However, on the other hand, implementing a substantial environmental strategy that addresses all phases of the product lifecycle is a complex and demanding challenge that several companies still need to overcome convincingly.

There is evidence that providing reliable and understandable information on the environmental performance of products and services is necessary to support the consumers' purchasing decisions and guide them towards more sustainable purchasing choices. This need is essential to allow a more effective and wider dissemination of the idea of green products in the market, which is undoubtedly linked to other concepts such as sustainability, eco-design, product circularity and finally circular economy.

The right way for consumers to recognize and reward more sustainable products (e.g., in terms of resource-efficient products, not harmful compounds for the natural environment and human health) is to communicate to them the complexity of environmental information in a simple manner. This could happen with the support of Ecolabeling frameworks and regulations, which provides results from Life Cycle Assessment studies (LCA) in the form of impact indicators.

In this podcast, entitled “Life Cycle Assessment and Ecolabelling towards Circular Economy”, the speakers would like to clarify the use LCA as a quantitative tool to evaluate product’s environmental performances and its role in promoting Circular Economy solutions, Ecodesign and product’s ecolabelling.

Participants: 

Francesco Romagnoli, Dr.sc.ing., professor, RTU VASSI; 

Maksims Feofilovs, Dr.sc.ing., assist. prof., RTU VASSI;

 Riccardo Paoli, M.sc., researcher, RTU VASSI.