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Reduction of Environmental Impact of Products Through Hotspot Analysis in LCA

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Research into Design for Communities, Volume 2 (ICoRD 2017)

Part of the book series: Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies ((SIST,volume 66))

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Abstract

Substantial effort is made against the depletion of natural resources by designing sustainable products using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. However, LCA does not indicate which unit manufacturing process has the highest opportunity for improvements with least resource allocation, that it where lies the hotspots. This study aims to find hotspots through LCA and help industries to identify the scopes for easy improvements. In this study, we consider ‘water taps’ manufactured by three companies and compute the Green House Gases (GHGs) emissions for each stage of a product, and find the lowest and average values of it. Next, we find the hotspots by comparing these values with the individual values of each process. Once hotspots are found, a company can focus only on these areas for fast reduction of GHGs. The practical effect would be reduction in carbon footprint, raw materials, energy, wastage of materials, and increase in economic benefit.

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Correspondence to Prabir Sarkar .

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Jitender, Sarkar, P. (2017). Reduction of Environmental Impact of Products Through Hotspot Analysis in LCA. In: Chakrabarti, A., Chakrabarti, D. (eds) Research into Design for Communities, Volume 2. ICoRD 2017. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 66. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3521-0_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3521-0_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-3520-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-3521-0

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