Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 3 Product life cycle.
Source
UNEP/SETAC (
2007
,
p. 12)
makers in their investment decisions (Jayaram and Srinivasan
2008
; Fonseca et al.
2011
; Molinos-Senante et al.
2012
).
There are different perspectives in which the life cycle can be applied to a
product (Ulmschneider
2004
, p. 49). The consumer bases his/her decision for a
certain product on the price, but may additionally consider operational costs as well,
if these are available (consumer-oriented LCC). The producer, however, has a
different perspective on the life cycle, which is oriented on the product life cycle
from design and launch of a product to its degeneration phase. For the water and
wastewater sector, both perspectives can apply; nevertheless, many authors tend to
associate the consumer-oriented LCC with water management. In practice, the
differences actually do not affect the LCC analyses much.
LCC is understood as part of the more holistic life cycle management, which
also for example includes life-cycle analysis (LCA) (i.e. life cycle oriented
assessment of environmental impacts of products, systems and services). To some
extent, the LCA provides the methodological framework for various tools such as
LCC (Reddy
2014
).
The approach to consider the costs over the entire life cycle originates in
business administration. The construction sector adopted this life cycle approach
applying it to construction materials but even more to objects of the built envi-
ronment such as buildings. Buildings, however, generally exhibit a distinctively
longer life expectancy than consumer goods. Therefore in the case of buildings, it is
more relevant to assess the functional life time and thereby the useful economic life
than relying on the technical service life.
With respect to LCC, efforts were made to standardize the approach. In inter-
national context ISO 15686-5:
“
Buildings and constructed assets - Service-life
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