Background and Relevance

To future proof our society we should aim to restrict and encourage companies to be less wasteful and more mindful but also change our mindsets as consumers. Taking steps towards reaching a circular economy, where we see each product for its material value and environmental cost, keeping resources in use through reusing, repairing, and reselling would help reduce embedded emissions in the first place[5]. However, in the meantime we need to aim to mitigate embedded emissions as much as possible by recycling and recovering everything we can[4][5].

Recycling has its own array of issues from logistical challenges to storage concerns and intrinsic energy consumption[1][2]. However don’t let this get you down, recycling has a multitude of advantages that offset this: lower emissions than production from scratch: less need for landfill/incineration and reduced mining and manufacture demand via resource preservation[4].

Life-Cycle Assesments

This is an examination of all stages of a products life, to determine the environmental cost of said product[6]. The goal of this technique is to shed some light on a products true environmental impact, helping to shape sustainability and mitigation strategies[6][7].

Methodology[7]

• Define the scope of the assessment –
• Determine and research process inputs and outputs ( energy consumption, emissions and material use)
• Determine the environmental impact of determine inputs and outputs
• Analyse results and draw conclusions of the environmental performance