ISO 14001:2015 and Life Cycle Assessment

[PaulAB]

Hi there,

I wanted to know, if someone in this forum got an opinion or approach regarding life cycle assessment, which will be required to do according to the current draft. What's really necessary to look at, how deep should companies look into this topic.

Thanks in advance for answers and your opinion.

Cheers,
Paul

 

[Randy]

Personally, from me, I think it's a load of dung especially for the small company that doesn't have the resources and for service type organizations....Unless I've missed something

 

[kalehner]

Its really about using a life cycle perspective when you are identifying aspects. We had a long discussion about this at the US TAG meeting in Indianapolis in March 2016 and there will be a Clarification of Intent issued shortly I believe on using a life cycle perspective.

 

[Randy]

Ma & Pa with 20 employee's making some kind of widget don't have either the time, resources or patience to do much Life Cycle considering

 

[kalehner]

Not sure what your point is Randy. Ma & Pa can look at ISO 14001:2015 for ideas and maybe improve their widgets environmental performance with no additional cost to make it or to the customer. It might even help the customer save money and reduce environmental impact of using the widget. What is wrong with Ma & Pa just thinking about making the widget in a way that reduces environmental impact during its intended life? If they succeed, maybe they get some market share. Maybe they grow to 200 employees because they made a better mouse trap.

I don't want to get off to a bad restart here Randy. I am glad that Cove is back. I wonder if you can find anything good to say about the revision. I believe that maybe looking at things in a different way then we a used to isn't all bad.

 

[Randy]

Something good? Yep, I'm gonna make a lot of money doing the transition audits

Other than that, getting rid of the "preventive action" piece by rolling it into imporovement was a smart move as was removal of some of the prescriptive documentation stuff

 

[armani]

But....what about "life-cycle assessment for a service"? How to address this?

 

[Randy]

Most likely not applicable.

 

[Dr. L. Ramakrishnan]

I believe that this subject was implicit in the earlier version of ISO-14001. Now this has been made explicit. We did consider the product life-cycle impacts when carrying out aspects and impacts analysis earlier. Apart from design and manufacturing aspects those aspects related to use and end-of-life (including EPR/IPR) phases are also important to understand and to address adequately.

 

[Kochharmeenakshi]

I believe that this subject was implicit in the earlier version of ISO-14001. Now this has been made explicit. We did consider the product life-cycle impacts when carrying out aspects and impacts analysis earlier. Apart from design and manufacturing aspects those aspects related to use and end-of-life (including EPR/IPR) phases are also important to understand and to address adequately.

Can anybody share example of there organization for hairline difference of our discussion..

thanks