Life Cycle Management: Implementing Sustainability in Business Practice

Abstract

Life cycle management is a business management concept applied in industrial and service sectors to improve products and services, while enhancing the overall sustainability performance of the business and its value chains. Life cycle thinking and product sustainability is operational for businesses that are ambitious and committed to reducing their environmental and socio- economic burden while maximizing economic and social value. In this regard, life cycle management is used beyond short-term business success and aims at long-term achievements. The term “life cycle management” has been confused with other uses in engineering and manufacturing (product life cycle management) and in software development (application life cycle management), in buildings, plants, information management and so on. There is a need to clarify this term and its defi nition more than a decade since the concept was fi rst introduced. This chapter aims at elaborating the concept and defi nitions of life cycle management as currently found in literature and as extending it from focusing on implementation of life cycle sustainability assess- ment into business practice to include it as part of sustainable consumption and production strategies and policies. Methods and tools used and the general frame- work for life cycle sustainability management covering environmental, social and economic aspects in business practices are discussed in detail. G.