The application of a multi-faceted approach for evaluating and improving the life cycle environmental performance of service industries

Abstract Service industries continue to be to be a driving force economically, both within the US and globally, yet their environmental impacts still tend to be overlooked. This article presents a hybrid life cycle assessment case study to assess and quantify the life cycle impacts of an engineering service firm. The data for the hybrid LCA of the firm's activities and operations was collected for one fiscal year, from January 2009 to December 2009. Data collection methods include an energy audit, personnel survey, and assessment of waste management practices. The results of the case study show that the impacts of employee travel and transportation as well as the building premises are the major contributors to the environmental impact of a service industry (40% and 24% of GWP, respectively) and should be the areas targeted for improvements to reduce life-cycle impacts of similar service firms. The study also reveals that in order to make specific targeted reductions to a firm's life-cycle impacts, more in depth evaluation of certain activities, such as workstation energy consumption, can be essential to identifying unnecessary wastes of resources.

[1]  Lawrence H. Brown,et al.  Estimating the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of Australian ambulance services , 2012 .

[2]  Sangwon Suh,et al.  Reply: Downstream cut-offs in integrated hybrid life-cycle assessment , 2006 .

[3]  Michele Blazek,et al.  Measurement of environmental impacts of telework adoption amidst change in complex organizations: AT&T survey methodology and results , 2002 .

[4]  G. Norris,et al.  TRACI the tool for the reduction and assessment of chemical and other environmental impacts , 2002 .

[5]  Seppo Junnila,et al.  Alternative Scenarios for Managing the Environmental Performance of a Service Sector Company , 2006 .

[6]  Sangwon Suh,et al.  Are services better for climate change? , 2006, Environmental science & technology.

[7]  C. Hendrickson,et al.  Environmental Implications of Service Industries , 2000 .

[8]  Arpad Horvath,et al.  Economic Input–Output Models for Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment , 1998 .

[9]  Wendy Stubbs,et al.  Evaluation of Australian companies’ scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions assessments ☆ , 2013 .

[10]  Hans-Jörg Althaus,et al.  The ecoinvent Database: Overview and Methodological Framework (7 pp) , 2005 .

[11]  P. Bhatia,et al.  The greenhouse gas protocol : a corporate accounting and reporting standard , 2001 .

[12]  G. Psacharopoulos.  Overview and methodology , 1991 .

[13]  Melissa M. Bilec,et al.  Life-Cycle Assessment Modeling of Construction Processes for Buildings , 2010 .

[14]  Evelina M. Tainer.  National Income and Product Accounts , 2012 .

[15]  Patricia L. Mokhtarian,et al.  The trade-off between trips and distance traveled in analyzing the emissions impacts of center-based telecommuting , 1998 .

[16]  Arpad Horvath,et al.  Environmental Assessment of Freight Transportation in the U.S. (11 pp) , 2006 .

[17]  Manfred Lenzen,et al.  Errors in Conventional and Input‐Output—based Life—Cycle Inventories , 2000 .

[18]  Melissa M. Bilec,et al.  A hybrid life cycle assessment model for *construction processes , 2007 .

[19]  H Scott Matthews,et al.  Categorization of Scope 3 emissions for streamlined enterprise carbon footprinting. , 2009, Environmental science & technology.

[20]  M. Curran.  Life-cycle Assessment: Inventory Guidelines and Principles , 1994 .

[21]  Mark Abkowitz,et al.  Insights on the Use of Hybrid Life Cycle Assessment for Environmental Footprinting , 2011 .

[22]  T. Graedel.  Life‐Cycle Assessment in the Service Industries , 1997 .

[23]  James A. Fava,et al.  A Technical Framework for Life-Cycle Assessment , 1994 .

[24]  Robert Ries,et al.  Example of a Hybrid Life-Cycle Assessment of Construction Processes , 2006 .

[25]  Gjalt Huppes,et al.  System boundary selection in life-cycle inventories using hybrid approaches. , 2004, Environmental science & technology.

[26]  G. Dóka.  Life Cycle Inventories of Waste Treatment Services , 2003 .

[27]  Adolfo Carballo-Penela,et al.  Managing the carbon footprint of products: the contribution of the method composed of financial statements (MC3) , 2010 .

[28]  Callie W. Babbitt,et al.  Economic-balance hybrid LCA extended with uncertainty analysis: case study of a laptop computer , 2011 .